The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
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3.1 • 531 Ratings
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- $34.99
Publisher Description
An instant New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today Bestseller • AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB SELECTION • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021 • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times • Time • Washington Post • Oprah Daily • People • Boston Globe • BookPage • Booklist • Kirkus • Atlanta Journal-Constitution • Chicago Public Library
Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel • Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction • Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction • Nominee for the NAACP Image Award
""Epic. . . . I was just enraptured by the lineage and the story of this modern African-American family. . . . I’ve never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me."" —Oprah Winfrey
The NAACP Image Award-winning poet makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.
Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.
To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Experience the history of America—and the country’s legacy of racism—through one family’s powerful saga. For as long as she can remember, Ailey Pearl Garfield and her older sisters have left the city to spend summers with their country relatives in Georgia. As Ailey grows up, she begins to notice the dark undercurrents of those idyllic summers, eventually coming to terms with a legacy of secrets, violence, and shame that have shaped her family. In her debut novel, acclaimed poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers weaves together past and present storylines into an epic that draws you fully into its orbit. Spanning from the beginning of the slave trade to the first Obama campaign, Jeffers’ book follows multiple generations of one family, exploring their dramas, strength, and love. Primary narrator Adenrele Ojo perfectly captures the incantatory, poetic force of Jeffers’ language as the story moves across generations. She’s ably supported by multitalented actress Karen Chilton, who relays the stories of Ailey’s ancestors with the wise affect of your favorite teacher, and Prentice Onayemi, who intones quotes from Black scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois with grave intensity. This unforgettable and uniquely American epic isn’t just the story of one family—it’s the story of how our country was created, and its sins and salvations ever since.
Customer Reviews
It ok
I like her book but I don’t like this for my opinion I think that if you not like book with weird stuff like taste of his mother milk that one but there more that my opinion your can be like that but I think some of her
Other book are butter
Wonderful saga
Historical saga of a Black family through generations from the time of the first white men in America until today and through the eyes of each descendant.
MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME!!!
This book was HEAVY! But ohhhhh so good! The ups, the downs, the laughs & the tears!!! Definitely an emotional roller coaster!