The Peach Seed
A Novel
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Fletcher Dukes and Altovise Benson reunite after decades apart—and a mountain of secrets—in this debut exploring the repercussions of a single choice and how an enduring talisman challenges and holds a family together.
On a routine trip to the Piggly Wiggly in Albany, Georgia, widower Fletcher Dukes smells a familiar perfume, then sees a tall woman the color of papershell pecans with a strawberry birthmark on the nape of her neck. He knows immediately that she is his lost love, Altovise Benson. Their bond, built on county fairs, sit-ins, and marches, once seemed a sure and forever thing. But their marriage plans were disrupted when the police turned a peaceful protest violent.
Before Altovise fled the South, Fletcher gave her a peach seed monkey with diamond eyes. As we learn via harrowing flashbacks, an enslaved ancestor on the coast of South Carolina carved the first peach seed, a talisman that, ever since, each father has gifted his son on his thirteenth birthday.
Giving one to Altovise initiated a break in tradition, irrevocably shaping the lives of generations of Dukeses. Recently, Fletcher has made do on his seven acres with his daughter Florida’s check-ins, his drop biscuits, and his faithful dog. But as he begins to reckon with long-ago choices, he finds he isn’t the only one burdened with unspoken truths.
An indelible portrait of a family, The Peach Seed explores how kin pass down legacies of sorrow, joy, and strength. And it is a parable of how a glimmer of hope as small as a seed can ripple across generations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones debuts with a layered saga of a Southern Black family that weaves stories of the slave trade and the 1960s civil rights movement. In 1796 Senegal, six-year-old Malik Welé begins to learn his father's woodcarving trade and dreams of one day sailing the Atlantic. His dream turns to a nightmare when he's abducted by two Black men and enslaved in America at age 17. In a parallel narrative set in present-day Georgia, 70-year-old Fletcher Duke encounters his long-ago lover Altovise Benson in a grocery store. Back in 1962, Fletcher and Altovise were working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when they were separated and jailed during an altercation with police, and never managed to reunite. Previously, Fletcher had carved Altovise a monkey from a peach seed, just like the one his father gave him as a boy. Before Jones reveals the link between the Duke family's monkey-carving tradition and Malik, a discovery that deepens Fletcher and Altovise's connection in the present day, she shows how Fletcher trained in workshops to protect other activists from mob and police violence while Altovise learned from the original Freedom Singers how to recast church songs into protest anthems. It's a lot to juggle, but Jones manages to tie together the themes of ancestral heritage and the persistent power of love. This is worth a look.
