Publisher's Synopsis
Immigrating Tears chronicles a coming of age story of a life journey, set in motion at the confluence of the unlikeliest of events, from upbringing in abject poverty and subsistence survival in sub-Saharan Africa to the experience of navigating educational and cultural terrains of schooling and new life in Europe and America. Along the way, the reader is presented with engaging insights and deep and poignant reflections on the immigrant experience and the stories that are carried along from the perspective of an astute observer. The story line is anchored in the author's journey of embracing running from a meager initial interest to the quest for and achieving the goal of completing a sub-four hour marathon. Combining contrasting style of brutally honest and heartbreaking narrative of struggle with restrained prose, F.C. Blake leaves the reader with a transfixing portrait of a dreamy teenager's upbringing, education, travels, and survival through varying geographies, cultures, and circumstances. In looking back to the past, and connecting it to the present, he walks fluidly in time while reflecting intimately on the themes of identity, family, running, dancing, love, life challenges, triumphs, and salvation. Immigrating Tears speaks for all those that anchor to places only to leave them behind physically, but carry their impact, good and bad, forever on the journey forward. It is also about those seekers who wander in this world to find their footing and feel they belong everywhere yet fit nowhere. Above all, F.C. Blake presents us with a gripping story of the indomitable thirst and will for extending beyond the darkness of the past and present, and reaching for and running to destiny in a quest for survival and self-determination. Masterful storytelling meets fearless honesty to give us a captivating view of the cost and consequence of such life; and, in reaching for the future, what is lost of the past and self, as well as the richness of and redemption in a full life.
