Dameron argues that people are made of their stories in this poignant novel about a young Black girl looking for her roots.
The youngest daughter in a Black family tries to understand her history and her legacy in this poignant multigenerational story.
Mika Tabor has to make a family tree for her history class, but as she tries to learn where she comes from a more existential question plagues her: "What am I made of?" It’s a difficult question to answer for Black Americans whose ancestors were forced to the U.S. and enslaved, but Mika’s grandfather, Teeta, tells her that in place of artifacts or records, she has the stories her family has passed down. The novel relays three generations of these stories in a Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, told through multiple first-person narratives as well as an intermittent close third person. The family lands in Columbia in 1948, when Mika’s great-grandmother Lady Bolton flees their Georgia hometown with her two children after the public lynching of a neighbor. About six years later, Lady’s daughter Weesie meets James “Teeta” Mosby at a vegetable stand and is instantly smitten; the two eventually marry and settle down in a newly constructed all-Black subdivision, on the titular Redwood Court. Despite the multiple perspectives, Mika is the heart of the novel, and the main timeline tracks her coming-of-age in the 1990s. Mika spends these years collecting memories and life lessons both trivial and essential: At one of Weesie’s summer cookouts, Mika begrudgingly runs around keeping food and drink in order while Weesie explains the merits of hosting; as she witnesses her parents being attacked with slurs, her father describes the importance of “pick[ing] your battle or your war.” Poet Dameron’s fiction debut is more a collection of snapshots than a straightforward narrative; the timeline jumps and the alternating points of view can be disorienting. Still, the scenes are brought to life by the way the author beautifully evokes the senses and focuses on intimate details, and the depiction of inherited trauma alongside profound love is powerful and moving.
Dameron argues that people are made of their stories in this poignant novel about a young Black girl looking for her roots.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593447024
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dial Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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