Memphis - BookWyrm.it

Copertina rigida, 256 pagine

Pubblicato il 01 Marzo 2022 da The Dial Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-23048-0

A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy.

Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something …

A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy.

Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.

3 edizioni

KnitAFett ha recensito Memphis di Tara M. Stringfellow

Rough but needed dose of reality.

4 stelle

This one was a book that focused heavily on the traumas inflicted upon a family throughout generations. There is a heavy emphasis on community and families coming together to support each other during really tough times, even with their own internal complexities. This was not an easy read due to the events that happen (biggest TW for me would be: sa of a minor, domestic abuse), but it shows the resilience of Black women who have had to deal with so much just to be able to survive.

The book can be a little difficult to follow at times due to the chapters jumping between timelines. I listened to the audio book, but saw that the physical copy has a family tree in the beginning, so if that's something that you have a hard time with, I would definitely recommend reading instead of listening to this one. I had …

This one was a book that focused heavily on the traumas inflicted upon a family throughout generations. There is a heavy emphasis on community and families coming together to support each other during really tough times, even with their own internal complexities. This was not an easy read due to the events that happen (biggest TW for me would be: sa of a minor, domestic abuse), but it shows the resilience of Black women who have had to deal with so much just to be able to survive.

The book can be a little difficult to follow at times due to the chapters jumping between timelines. I listened to the audio book, but saw that the physical copy has a family tree in the beginning, so if that's something that you have a hard time with, I would definitely recommend reading instead of listening to this one. I had to backtrack a lot in the beginning until I got familiar with all the characters.