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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Novel Paperback – May 10, 2022
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An instant New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today Bestseller • AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB SELECTION • ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S "GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS" • BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021 • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times • Time • Washington Post • Oprah Daily • People • Boston Globe • BookPage • Booklist • Kirkus • Atlanta Journal-Constitution • Chicago Public Library
Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel • Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction • Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction • Nominee for the NAACP Image Award
"Epic. . . . I was just enraptured by the lineage and the story of this modern African-American family. . . . I’ve never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me." —Oprah Winfrey
The NAACP Image Award-winning poet makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.
Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.
To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.
- Print length816 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateMay 10, 2022
- Dimensions5.31 x 1.84 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100062942956
- ISBN-13978-0062942951
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From the Publisher
![The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Novel Honoree Fanonne Jeffers An Oprah's Book Club Pick](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/aplus-media-library-service-media/2f63b384-ca6a-4f97-a628-837ac8f89364.__CR0,0,970,300_PT0_SX970_V1___.png)
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Whatever must be said to get you to heft this daunting debut novel by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, I’ll say, because The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is the kind of book that comes around only once a decade. Yes, at roughly 800 pages, it is, indeed, a mountain to climb, but the journey is engrossing, and the view from the summit will transform your understanding of America. . . . With the depth of its intelligence and the breadth of its vision, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is simply magnificent.” — Ron Charles, Washington Post
“Triumphant. . . . Quite simply the best book that I have read in a very, very long time. . . . An epic tale of adventure that brings to mind characters you never forget: Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time, Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn. . . . The historical archives of Black Americans are too often filled with broad outlines of what happened. . . . One of the many triumphs of Love Songs is how Jeffers transforms this large history into a story that feels specific and cinematic in the telling. . . . Just as Toni Morrison did in Beloved, Jeffers uses fiction to fill in the gaping blanks of those who have been rendered nameless and therefore storyless. . . . A sweeping, masterly debut.” — Veronica Chambers, New York Times Book Review
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Boisis epic in its scope. [It] traces the story of a family, the town in Georgia where they come from, and their migration outward over generations. The word epic is overused these days, but this book was meant to be an epic and it is. . . . This is one of the most American books I have ever read. It’s a book about the United States. It’s a book about the legacy of slavery in this country. . . . And it’s also a book about traumas and loves that sustain over generations.” — Noel King, NPR
“[An] ambitious début novel, by a noted poet. . . . Jeffers amasses details, richly rendering suffering and resistance.” — New Yorker
“A feat of beauty and breadth.” — Time, 100 Must-Read Books of the Year
“This sweeping, brilliant and beautiful narrative is at once a love song to Black girlhood, family, history, joy, pain . . . and so much more. In Jeffers's deft hands, the story of race and love in America becomes the great American novel.” — Jacqueline Woodson, author of Red at the Bone and Another Brooklyn
"Stunning." — People, Top 10 Books of the Year
“A sweeping matriarchal epic that leads readers through a majestic tour of race, family, and love in America, this striking debut novel by an award-winning poet is, indeed, the Great American Novel at its finest.” — Joshunda Sanders, Boston Globe’s Best Books of the Year
“With The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Jeffers has created an opus, an indelible entry to the canon of contemporary American literature and one of the foundational fictional texts of Black literature worthy of sitting alongside Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing.” — Latria Graham, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Stupendously good. . . . Jeffers’ renditions of Black family traditions and the burden of respectability politics are spot-on, and made me wish the book was even longer.” — Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR Best Books of the Year
“As one of the most prolific poets of our time, Jeffers has penned a family saga that is just as brilliant as it is necessary, just as intimate as it is expansive. An outstanding portrait of an American family and in turn, an outstanding portrait of America.” — Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give
“This ambitious debut novel by a National Book Award-nominated poet chronicles the journey of an American family from the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our present day, and one Black woman’s coming-to-terms with her legacy." — Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today
“[A] generational magnum opus.” — O, the Oprah Magazine
“Utterly remarkable.” — Karla Strand, Ms.
“A vibrant and tender coming-of-age novel. Ailey Pearl Garfield is a young girl reckoning with what it means to be a Black woman in America. . . . [Ailey’s] journey features complex and intimate narratives of love and heartbreak from her family’s two centuries in the American South, giving her not only insight into her family’s complicated past, but also the tools to imagine her own future.” — Time
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, from acclaimed poet and first-time novelist Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, has hit every note—and the finished product feels like a Southern gospel song that makes the chest swell with emotion.” — Nylah Burton, Shondaland
"If you read one book this year, choose this one. I went to bed thinking of Ailey Pearl Garfield and woke up thinking of her. With the arrival of this epic novel of family, race, and ancestral legacy, one of America's finest poets has announced herself as a storyteller of the highest magnitude. Absolutely brilliant." — Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of Wench and Balm
“[A] soaring debut [and] a moving portrait of an American family and its history. It’s beautifully told—it’s sexy, confrontational, tragic—and does exactly what good historical fiction should: holds you fast, brings you closer to history and humanity, and sticks with you for days.” — Genevieve Walker, San Francisco Chronicle
“Prepare to be wholly engrossed. . . . This profound reading experience brought me a deep awareness of intergenerational trauma and triumph. [A] phenomenal saga. . . . Jeffers’s Ailey Pearl Garfield is one of the most fully realized central protagonists and interlocutors that I’ve encountered in fiction. Jeffers celebrates Black women not as saints or saviors, but brilliant survivors who embody joy and genius along with their history.” — Lauren LeBlanc, Observer
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is an investment, but a worthy one. It's the kind of epic that deserves its own place in the sun.” — Chris Vognar, Star Tribune
“It’s not often I get to the last few chapters of an 816-page book and wish it wouldn’t end so soon. But that’s what happened when I read The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, the stunner of a debut novel by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. It’s historical fiction in which a solid base of research is brought brilliantly to life by a cast of memorable characters and irresistible storytelling.” — Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times
“From our earliest roots, African and Indigenous, to our present-day realities weighed down by inequity and injustice, Jeffers writes about all of us with such tenderness and deep knowing. Hers is the gorgeous prose one expects from a gifted, accomplished poet, masterful and stunning, as she explores both the bountiful resilience of Black folks and the insidious depravity wrought by white supremacy. These Love Songs make for a frank, feminist, and unforgettable read.” — Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
“A story filled with suffering, resilience—and a surprising twist.” — Perdita Buchan, New York Journal of Books
"A sprawling, ambitious debut novel that is as impassioned in promoting Black women’s autonomy as it is insistent on acknowledging our common humanity. . . . Jeffers, a celebrated poet, manages the difficult task of blending the sweeping with the intimate. . . . If this isn’t the Great American Novel, it's a mighty attempt at achieving one." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Poet Jeffers reinvigorates the multigenerational saga in her first novel, an audacious, mellifluous love song to an African American family. . . . Jeffers’ lyrical cadences shimmer. . . . Incandescent and not to be missed.” — Lesley Williams, Booklist (starred review)
"In her debut novel, celebrated poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers weaves an epic ancestral story. . . . From slavery to freedom, discrimination to justice, tradition to unorthodoxy, this story covers large parts of not just of Ailey’s heritage but also America’s. . . . The result is a dazzling tale of love and loss. . . . Comparisons to Toni Morrison are bound to be made and. . . . The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Boisearns its place among such company, as Jeffers engages with and builds upon the legacy of African American literature as carefully and masterfully as she does the narrative of Ailey’s family." — Eric Ponce, BookPage
“In this dazzling debut, generations of high yellow and brown ‘skin-ded’ women in one Georgia family explore the complexities of kin, the legacies of trauma, with all the sharp corners and blind alleys of real life. Wise, funny, deeply moving, I can’t tell you how much I love this book. A few times a generation a book comes along that gathers you up with its force, its insights, its sound and fury, its lyrical beauty. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is one of those books. Not merely a good novel, but a great and important one.” — Stephanie Powell Watts, author of No One Is Coming to Save Us
“A staggering and ambitious saga. . . .Themes of family, class, higher education, feminism, and colorism yield many rich layers. Readers will be floored." — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Textually connected to the works of Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison, to name a few, [The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is] a judicious study of American history that humanizes its participants through exploration of their stories. . . . Reminiscent of both Alex Haley’s Roots and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, the novel captures the spiritual resilience of African American women. . . . An amazing first novel." — Adele Newson-Horst, World Literature Today
“At once ambitious and intimate . . . [it] calls to mind the brilliant work of Yaa Gyasi in 'Homegoing'. . . the inherent poetry of its language makes the novel absolutely exhilarating. The achievement of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is certainly in the risks she is willing to take.” — Steven Whitton, Anniston Star
“Three talented narrators transport listeners with this absorbing novel. This lyrical debut, which is at once expansive and intimate, explores timely issues of intergenerational trauma, colorism, class divides, and higher education. . . . Narrator Adenrele Ojo could teach a master class in narration with her flawless portrayals of the intelligent, sensitive Ailey; her wise, courageous Uncle Root; and the other unforgettable contemporary family members.” — AudioFile
“For me, this doesn't take much thought. It is THE novel of the year. This astonishing work is the first fiction by a writer whose poetry collections are profound and beautiful. In this book, a young woman follows her family history into the recesses of slavery in America. The young woman is a historian, so we are following her into her stunning access to the documentation of her family's capture and beyond, to the present.” — Michael Silverblatt, KCRW’s Top 10 Books of the Year
About the Author
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a fiction writer, poet, and essayist. She is the author of five poetry collections, including the 2020 collection The Age of Phillis, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award, the George Washington Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was a contributor to The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward, and has been published in the Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and other literary publications. Jeffers was elected into the American Antiquarian Society, whose members include fourteen U.S. presidents, and is Critic at Large for Kenyon Review. She teaches creative writing and literature at University of Oklahoma. The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois is her first novel and was a New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and an Oprah Book Club Pick.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; First Edition (May 10, 2022)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 816 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062942956
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062942951
- Item Weight : 1.33 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 1.84 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #17,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Honorée Fanonne Jeffers](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/S/amzn-author-media-prod/t0abn9dp3g4f89dvaf035g35i5._SY600_.jpg)
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Her first novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, is forthcoming from Harper in July 2021; in addition, she’s the author of five books of poetry, most recently, The Age of Phillis (Wesleyan, 2020), based upon fifteen years of research on the life and times of Phillis Wheatley (Peters), a formerly enslaved person who was the first African American woman to publish a book. Jeffers’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry (Norton 2013), Callaloo, Common-Place: The Journal of Early American Life, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race (Scribner 2016), The Kenyon Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. She is the recipient of fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Aspen Summer Words Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation through the Library of Congress, and she has been honored with two lifetime achievement notations, the Harper Lee Award for Literary Distinction, and induction into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. Jeffers is Critic-at-Large for The Kenyon Review and Professor of English at University of Oklahoma.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the writing style beautifully written and the storyline informative and peaceful. They also find the characters rich and fascinating. Readers describe the content as remarkable, necessary, and remarkable. Opinions are mixed on the emotional tone, with some finding it emotional and painful, while others find it depressing and sad. Reader opinions are mixed also on the length, with others finding it very lengthy.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the writing style beautiful, enriched with poetry, history, literature, and politics. They also say the dialogue is priceless and the story lines are skillfully weaved.
"...This was written so well with so much detail and depth. Points of view was given because the hurt in one’s life needed to be talked about...." Read more
"...The writing is silky smooth, not a spare word, and there’s a family tree to help with remembering the progeny and relationships of the..." Read more
"...the author won’t be writing any more novels because her writing was simply magnificent. Yes, it’s long, but this is a page turner off rip...." Read more
"...And it still goes on today.This is a book of great beauty and significance. I treasure it." Read more
Customers find the storyline informative, fascinating, and rich with historical details. They also describe the book as mesmerizing, heartbreaking, and shocking. Readers also say it's uplifting, and a peaceful poem of almost rememberance.
"...Also a very interesting meditation on the way people interpret skin color to have some deeper meaning." Read more
"...This book had so many triggers, black trauma and drama...." Read more
"...This is a precious story, one that I will read and re-read, and it is one that I keep notes in and want to refer back to...." Read more
"...What we have here is an epic, complex story that was never difficult to read...." Read more
Customers find the characters fascinating and rich.
"...while our main character is Ailey, and what a fine, strong, lovable main character she is, the book goes back in time for generations, two..." Read more
"...The growth and maturation of the characters as the story unwinds makes you not want to put this book down." Read more
"...I loved the strong women and their fully fleshed out personalities and the dialogue is priceless...." Read more
"...and hard in this story but ultimately its honesty, the love between the characters and the power of perseverance makes it inspirational." Read more
Customers find the book a true testament to the strength and resilience of our ancestors. They also mention that the book is about pain, suffering, strength, courage, and redemption.
"...A powerful testament to the strength it takes to survive adversity...." Read more
"...because, while our main character is Ailey, and what a fine, strong, lovable main character she is, the book goes back in time for generations, two..." Read more
"...The women in this novel are examples of great strength...." Read more
"...I loved the strong women and their fully fleshed out personalities and the dialogue is priceless...." Read more
Customers find the book has a lot of information, significance, and beauty. They also say it's one of the most remarkable and beautiful books they've read in a while.
"...This was written so well with so much detail and depth. Points of view was given because the hurt in one’s life needed to be talked about...." Read more
"...The characterization was superb and the historical details were well nigh perfect. Ailey—and her family—have such strong voices...." Read more
"Mesmerizing, heartbreaking and so very necessary. It doesn’t even matter whether the reader is American or not...." Read more
"It’s seems the author took her time with this book and I appreciated the details along with the back and forth between time periods...." Read more
Customers find the book's emotional content resonates deep in their core. They say it's an emotional experience that cannot be missed by anyone.
"...Ailey—and her family—have such strong voices...." Read more
"...It resonated deep in my core,this is the history that some do not want told and others do not appreciate...." Read more
"This book is an emotional experience that cannot be missed by anyone of every race and beliefs...." Read more
"This book is beautifully written and the audio book is beautifully performed...." Read more
Customers are mixed about the emotional tone. Some find the book an emotional saga of the character's lives, featuring tales of pain, suffering, strength, courage, and love. They also mention that the pages contain pride, joy, sadness, anger, frustration, happiness, and poetry. However, others say that the book is draining, very depressing, sad, and contains no solution. They say some of the truths are heartbreaking, disturbing, and not entertaining except in short passages.
"...I felt every emotion throughout the pages: pride, joy, sadness, anger, frustration, happiness...." Read more
"...It was enthralling and devastating. There is a significant amount of child sexual abuse - I wonder if that was partially to give any reader the..." Read more
"...It shows love overcoming race, ethnicity and adversity. The women in this novel are examples of great strength...." Read more
"Mesmerizing, heartbreaking and so very necessary. It doesn’t even matter whether the reader is American or not...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the length of the book. Some find it very lengthy but well worth the time spent, while others say it's interesting characters.
"This book is like no other I have ever read. It is indeed very long; I confess to skimming a couple of times but that had to do with my eagerness..." Read more
"...It was a long, grueling read. Several times, I put it down and didn’t pick it up again for weeks...." Read more
"...It was greed, and it could not be contained." Very lengthy but well worth the time spent...." Read more
"...Make no mistake, this is a LONG read, but the story makes you not want to put it down! Kudos to Ms. Jeffers. I can’t wait for the next book!" Read more
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Uncle Root was amazing! Everyone needs an uncle like him. Ailey was my girl but boy did i get upset with her at one point that i had to press pause. I cried and wanted to save her. Really i wanted to go back and save younger me. If her father knew what his dad was doing to his daughters he would of taken that man out. That damn grandma and maid they knew what he was doing. I wish women would stand together! Like why not help save someone that i ms so innocent? People are out here hurting people of all ages changing their life and don’t give a damn.
There is so much to be talked about. This book is so good. No disrespect, being an African American woman this hits hard. All of it does. The pain is still there because people keep repeating history instead of being happy. Scooter and Rebecca is a prime example of how black man want white women at the expense of disrespecting black women. Like love who you want without the extra. I wish Ailey never let some of these use her like that but hell we all have to live and learn.
Without getting too much in my feelings but who are the real animals/ monsters? Because Samuel displayed just that. A sick piece of you know what. Read or listen but most of learn and be a better person after you do.
A family tree, as another reader suggests, would be helpful and would reinforce the historical weight of the narrative overall.
I have just begun to read this book today--when it arrived--and wanted to address the quality of the book and the deckle edge. Many people are "reviewing" this wonderful novel by rating it low and complaining about "the poor quality" of the book and the paper, stating that they've never seen anything like it before.
The book is simply produced with a "deckle edge", which is a rough, untidy, rugged edge. Many books, both hardback and paperback, of today and of years ago, are made with this type of page edge on the right and left edges of the book. I am guessing that the critics have not seen this before. It is not the prettiest deckle, as I think it is a little tiny bit rough, but if so many people hadn't complained, I'd never have noticed it. It looks like it was intended to be that way. I personally love a deckle edge like this.
The paper quality is wonderful and doesn't feather or bleed through when highlighted or underlined in regular ballpoint pen.
I do think that it is as nice as any other hardback I've purchased, and not defective or inferior!
I have only begun to read this, and will edit this "review" with an actual review of the novel later when I finish it. I just didn't think it fair to this marvelously talented author that people look at the reviews (of which there are 14 as of the time of this writing) and see extremely low reviews--when there are just simply quite a few people unfamiliar with both deckle edges and the evaluation of paper quality!
Also, all of the pagination seems fine. It appears that some people are believing that they are experiencing rather strange problems. This appears to me to be a fine hardback book, and actually quite a good value considering the number of pages and the quality of the writing so far.
UPDATE: 10 days later...
*****
The first thing I want to recommend about this book is that people purchase the hardback version. The reason is that in the process of learning about all of the characters here, the reader keeps referring back to the genealogy of the ancestors in the front of the book. So many times. I know this sounds like a huge hassle, but it is NOT—it is a part of understanding a whole community of ancestors, and it is necessary to really understand the many, many facets of their story.
Also I looked back again and again at the chapters in the table of contents that were flashbacks in time for reference. Of course you can do this with an e-reader but it is much more cumbersome. This is a precious story, one that I will read and re-read, and it is one that I keep notes in and want to refer back to. I know that this can be done as well with a Kindle, but it is different, and I strongly prefer a physical hardback book. Think of your favorite book ever, and if you want that to be in a hardback form, you want this one to be the same.
I read this book in ten days and it was a beautiful adventure, one that I wished would never end. It is the story of not just of a woman (though it is that too), but the story of a people—all of the main character’s ancestors too. All those who came before her. The main character’s story cannot be understood apart from them. In reading this story, I came to experience this in a very profound way—how we are all connected to those who came before us, and how they all are a very real part of us now. Of course, I would have said that I recognized this before I read the book, but now I understand this in a really visceral way as well.
This book is a portal into seeing a part of a people’s experience that I could not experience any other way. Not just African Americans, but Native Americans and White people too, in a way that is raw and real and impactful, because of the pain, cruelty, humanness, kindness, and familial love that permeates this novel.
I want to give a trigger warning as this book reflects the reality of harsh living in the early part of our country’s history, including stories of abuse and violations of all types. None of it is gratuitous though, and much of the details are left to the imagination, expressed as people of that time would if they were sharing it with others.
The novel takes place for the most part in Chicasetta, Georgia, and follows many generations of the people who lived there. It is inclusive in that it enables the readers to witness the thoughts, decisions, and justifications of many loving actions and even more horrendous and grotesque actions. In other words, it is a human experience for this time in history. I felt like I entered into a place that would be closed off to me because of time, race, and geography. I felt privileged to hear these precious stories. Even though this is fiction, I do think that the stories are familiar and common to so many families of that time. And to those alive now, too.
I just finished now this book and am so sad to leave these characters behind. I cannot imagine anyone regretting purchasing this book, and investing hours in reading it, gaining the privilege of participating in a world view that this so comprehensive that they’d never be invited it into otherwise. I feel like I’ve had a vital glimpse into what Black people and Native Americans have experienced, and White people too—one that I could gain in no other way.
Highest recommendation, one of my favorite books, ever.
*****
It took me about a month to slowly read through and savor the story- or should I say storylines because, while our main character is Ailey, and what a fine, strong, lovable main character she is, the book goes back in time for generations, two centuries, in fact, exploring her roots. The setting is the Deep South, and the ancestors are Indigenous, Black, and white.
What we have here is an epic, complex story that was never difficult to read. The writing is silky smooth, not a spare word, and there’s a family tree to help with remembering the progeny and relationships of the characters.
This is a story of inter-generational pain, abuse, trauma, horror, sadness, and grief, while also being a story of resilience, healing, and education. I am in awe of this book and the sheer talent and hard work by the author in creating it. This is a story that could have been told over multiple installments, and yet, it was delivered as one packaged, sturdy whole, without losing an ounce of interest on the part of the reader, and with complete investment in Ailey and her family. I’ll never forget the experience.
I received a gifted copy.
![Customer image](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/transparent-pixel._V192234675_.gif)
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2021
It took me about a month to slowly read through and savor the story- or should I say storylines because, while our main character is Ailey, and what a fine, strong, lovable main character she is, the book goes back in time for generations, two centuries, in fact, exploring her roots. The setting is the Deep South, and the ancestors are Indigenous, Black, and white.
What we have here is an epic, complex story that was never difficult to read. The writing is silky smooth, not a spare word, and there’s a family tree to help with remembering the progeny and relationships of the characters.
This is a story of inter-generational pain, abuse, trauma, horror, sadness, and grief, while also being a story of resilience, healing, and education. I am in awe of this book and the sheer talent and hard work by the author in creating it. This is a story that could have been told over multiple installments, and yet, it was delivered as one packaged, sturdy whole, without losing an ounce of interest on the part of the reader, and with complete investment in Ailey and her family. I’ll never forget the experience.
I received a gifted copy.
![Customer image](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91NL+WaM0kL._SY88.jpg)
Top reviews from other countries
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El libro está contado en dos tiempos y a lo largo de la historia vamos brincando del pasado al presente.
Un libro con temas de racismo, esclavitud, abuso y feminismo.
¡Muchos personajes!
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Do not be daunted by its size, take a deep breath and dive in!