Bookish Mewsings: Home and Away by Rochelle Alers

Home and Away by Rochelle Alers

Dafina, 2024

Fiction/Historical/Romance; 368 pgs

Source: From the Publisher via NetGalley

Harper Fleming has left behind her job with a Chicago paper and her on again/off again boyfriend to spend the summer with her grandfather in Tennessee. For too long she has waited for the opportunity to be promoted to a sportswriter, only to get excuses as to why she isn't right for the job, including the fact that she's a woman. One of her favorite places to visit during her childhood summers was her grandparents farm. She hopes to recreate that feeling of comfort and security by staying with her recently widowed grandfather and finally write the book she's been wanting to write about her great-grandfather and his time in the Negro Baseball Leagues during the 1930's and 1940's. Perhaps along the way, she can redefine her own life. 

Harper's grandfather had saved all of his father's journals from his father's time playing baseball. He never had the desire to read them, but he was willing to let Harper do so, and they would become the main source for her novel. She decided against writing a biography of her great-grandfather's life, knowing it might tarnish her family's reputation she discover any sort of scandal, especially given her father's public life as a former professional baseball player, now sports broadcaster. The story of Harper rediscovering what it is she truly wants in life is interwoven with that of the novel she is writing, the story of a fictional baseball player who is desperate to play ball, loosely based on her great-grandfather's life. 

While I appreciate what the author was trying to accomplish with the novel, the novel within the novel aspect did not entirely work for me. Perhaps the meta novel was meant to be a snapshot of what Harper was writing, but I did not read it that way. I was expecting it to hold its own along side the contemporary storyline. And so it seemed like certain aspects were rushed and others left incomplete, leaving me wanting more. Even so, I thought the overall novel had a lot going for it too. The main and minor characters, including those in Harper's novel, were all well-developed with strong backstories. I was fully invested in Moses, Winnie, and Sallie-Ann's stories just as much as I was Harper's and her old childhood friend Cheney's stories. I especially liked those moments when Harper reflected on the characters she created, relating them to her own life just as much as she did with her great-grandfather's story and history itself. 

I found Harper to be a very relatable character. Her fierce independence and wanting to prove to the world that she was able to do it all on her own, is something I can relate to. She is also very protective of her heart. Running into her brothers' old childhood friend and getting reacquainted with him causes her to have to re-evaluate some of the rules she's put in place. I loved her grandfather. There's one scene in which he confronts Harper with some hard truths and her life in general, and even I admit they made me stop and think.

While Harper's main character, Moses, is the main focus of her novel, the women she wrote about stood out even more for me. While some of them took on more tradition roles in their lives, others, like Winnie, the owner of her own baseball league, definitely was not. All of the women in Rochelle Alers novel were strong and intelligent women. 

There is a lot of baseball talk and baseball history in the novel, which may be off-putting to those not interested in the sport, but regardless, the history was fascinating. I knew so little of the Negro Baseball Leagues going into this novel, and now I find myself wanting to know more. Alers also gives us a look at life in the South (and beyond) during the 1930’s and 1940’s, with the Jim Crow laws and prejudice against people of color on high display. The fear these baseball players felt going into some of these towns, the discrimination they faced, was all too real. It wasn’t unheard of for them to be taken advantage of by their own league owners, having them sign contracts they couldn’t read because they hadn’t been afforded the opportunity to learn. The contrasts between the treatment of the Black players in Latin America where they played in the winter was immense. It made coming back to the U.S. in the spring particularly difficult and frustrating.

I thought this would be a perfect book to feature this month, for Black History Month. Not only does it feature a popular American past-time, but it also reflects a part of US history, both good and bad. As I see headlines today of attacks on diversity programs in workplaces and in education, it makes me sad—and mad. Mad that the powerful are championing the cause of racists, misogynists, ableists, and ageists to discriminate against those who appear differently than they do. These baseball players were amazing at their sport and many were probably better than their white counterparts. But because they were Black, they were looked down upon and treated poorly. Diversity programs in schools and in workplaces were set up to help educate and prevent discrimination and to create equal opportunity. The benefits of such programs have been documented over and over again. It would be nice if such programs weren’t necessary, but we’re already seeing the reasons why they are still very much needed—just by looking around and hearing what is going on in our communities and around the country today.

---

© 2025, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.