Cane River is a familial saga that tells the story of the author's ancestors. The story begins in 1834 with story of Suzette, the author's great-great grandmother. She is a slave living in the Cane River area of Louisiana. Tademy tells Suzette's story for about twenty years, including her trials and tribulations of being a house slave on a medium-size Creole plantation. Suzette is raped by Eugene Durant, a Frenchman who is related to her owner. She eventually has two children by this man, one of whom is a daughter named Philomene. After Philomene becomes a teenager, the story shifts to tell her story. Narcisse Fredieu, another relative of Philomene's owner, becomes smitten with her, and even though he is quite older than she, wealthy, and a white man, they eventually have eight children together. The oldest of the eight children is Emily. Emily is born in 1861, right before the emancipation of the slaves. She is the first daughter in this line of females that will never know what it is like to be someone else's property. She is sent to New Orleans to boarding school to learn to read and write, things her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother never knew how to do. She falls in love with Joseph Billes, one of her father's friends, and he returns her affections deeply. They eventually move in together despite the misgivings of her family. Mixing of the races was not tolerated at all during the reconstruction period. After having five children and living together for twenty years, Emily was forced to move out and into another home because of the escalating threats to her family's life. Joseph never quit loving his children though, and came by to see them whenever he could until his death several years later. .
The central theme to this book is the importance of family and how the strength of those ties unites its members. I believe that the telling of the saga in three separate "stories" allows the reader to understand the progression of this familial belief.