A colorful and richly evocative story of the survival of a displaced people.
Massally presents an unconventional narrative nonfiction history of the Gullah diaspora.
“This saga begins not with chains, but on African soil,” the author writes at the outset of this compendious account of the movement of the Gullah people from West Africa to the American South, “celebrating the deep-rooted genius of the ancestors.” The author wants to stress that the Gullah Geechee world was not born in the swamps of South Carolina and Georgia but was instead transported there, with care and tenacity, from Senegal and Sierra Leone and the Upper Guinea Coast. He works to dramatize this transported culture via a recurring cast of characters, including Gambozo, an ageless storyteller and keeper of his people’s records, who at one point speaks in the Gullah dialect to tell his young listeners about Bunce Island, the Sierra Leone depot where enslaved people were processed before their brutal crossing to the New World: “When dey took us to Bunce Island, dat fortress was meant to dismantle us…Dey tried to turn bodies into cargo and names into numbers.” Massally’s account follows those bodies and names across the ocean to lots in South Carolina, and he periodically asks his readers to “Learn, Listen, Lift” by considering the history they’re learning. “Study the ledger for what it omits,” he cautions. “Learn how slavery’s engine ran on two things: the whip in the field and the pen in the office.” Vivid prose such as this runs throughout the text as it details the communal and spiritual practices the Gullah people used in the Lowcountry, with “conjure bundles” and other emblems collected and preserved, usually by the midwives and other women, who kept the culture alive from generation to generation. Everything culminates in Massally’s stories of various Gullah Geechee returning to Sierra Leone.
A colorful and richly evocative story of the survival of a displaced people.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9798994088838
Page Count: 237
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome new version of a publication that is no less important now than it was in 1967.
A timely distilled version of the powerful report on racism in the U.S.
Created by Lyndon Johnson’s executive order in 1967, the Kerner Commission was convened in response to inner-city riots in cities like Newark and Detroit, and its findings have renewed relevance in the wake of the George Floyd verdict and other recent police brutality cases. The report, named for Otto Kerner, the chairman of the commission and then governor of Illinois, explored the systemic reasons why an “apocalyptic fury” broke out that summer even in the wake of the passage of significant civil rights and voting acts—a response with striking echoes in recent events across the country. In this edited and contextualized version, New Yorker staff writer Cobb, with the assistance of Guariglia, capably demonstrates the continued relevance and prescience of the commission’s findings on institutionalized discriminatory policies in housing, education, employment, and the media. The commission was not the first to address racial violence in the century, and it would not be the last, but the bipartisan group of 11 members—including two Blacks and one woman—was impressively thorough in its investigation of the complex overarching social and economic issues at play. “The members were not seeking to understand a singular incident of disorder,” writes Cobb, “but the phenomenon of rioting itself.” Johnson wanted to know what happened, why it happened, and what could be done so it doesn’t happen “again and again.” Of course, it has happened again and again, and many of the report’s recommendations remain unimplemented. This version of the landmark report features a superb introduction by Cobb and a closing section of frequently asked questions—e.g., “How come nothing has been done about these problems?” The book contains plenty of fodder for crucial national conversations and many excellent ideas for much-needed reforms that could be put into place now.
A welcome new version of a publication that is no less important now than it was in 1967.Pub Date: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-892-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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