At almost 800 pages, this is a chunk of a book and reading it is like inviting a whole new family to become part of your life. This is a fictional family history covering multiple generations and multiple branches of the family tree, but it is so much more than that as it embraces social history and the power of women through the centuries.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers states in the back of the book that this is not an academic history book, but after spending ten years reading countless books as research, it might as well be, as it is historically accurate and delivers an important message on Black feminism.
Despite the amount of pages and the historical references, this book is a compelling read as the extended family comes alive on the pages. There are people you will love and people you will despise, but the author uses the story line to carefully offer up opposing views - not so much as an excuse for poor treatment of fellow humans, but to offer an insight into the attitudes of wider society.
The central character, Ailey Pearl Garfield, is introduced to us as a small child living in Georgia in the last part of the twentieth century, and as she grows up to become a young woman, the flashbacks to the lives of her ancestors show how much the past influences the present. Her family lives on a farm that was previously a plantation worked by slaves who are direct ancestors, and with her great grandmother still alive to recount the experience of her own mother and grandmother, history is more than a few lines in a book.
What really shines through is the importance of family as a support network for when things go wrong. It doesn't always work as it is supposed to, but family loyalty and 'home training' provide structure and something to fall back on when times get hard.
Well worth reading.
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