Promise
A Novel
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation in Promise, a “magical, magnificent novel” (Marlon James) from “a startlingly fresh voice” (Jacqueline Woodson).
A KIRKUS REVIEWS AND CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
The people of Salt Point could indeed be fearful about the world beyond themselves; most of them would be born and die without ever having gone more than twenty or thirty miles from houses that were crammed with generations of their families. . . . But something was shifting at the end of summer 1957.
The Kindred sisters—Ezra and Cinthy—have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs.
But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way. And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality, and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as threats to their way of life. Amid escalating violence, prejudice, and fear, bold Ezra and watchful Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they’ve built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival.
In luminous, richly descriptive writing, Promise celebrates one family’s story of resistance. It’s a book that will break your heart—and then rebuild it with courage, hope, and love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The stirring debut novel from poet Griffiths (Seeing the Body) depicts the insidious reach of racism in the Jim Crow era. Cinthy and Ezra Kindred are growing up in 1950s coastal Maine. Their father is a teacher at their school, and the Kindreds' friendship with the Junketts, the only other Black family in their small town, is happy and sustaining. But in the fallout from the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the families' relationships with their white neighbors start to sour. Ezra's longtime best friend Ruby insults the girls' mother by repeating a racist slur said by her own mother, and the sheriff's deputy intimidates the Junketts by repeatedly cruising past their house. These developments dredge up painful stories of the Kindred family's past in Delaware, where Cinthy and Ezra's great-grandfather's church was burned down by white supremacists decades earlier. Griffiths' poetic sensibilities shine in the lyrical language she uses to describe horrific events ("a slicked comet of blood"). The depiction of the families' isolation and vulnerability feels all too real, as does Griffiths' portrayal of how dignity and resilience are passed down through generations. This stands as an affirmation of a family's fierce pride and hard-won joy.
