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A review by charlotekerstenauthor
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
"All words and deeds will find you, as a tightening noose finds the neck."
Spoilers follow, as well as discussions of domestic violence and the murder of a child.
So What's It About? (from Goodreads)
"When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to keep Jessica and his daughter with him forever."
What I Thought
An African immortal, you say? He immigrates to the New World and experiences key parts of black history, you say? His long life might cause him to be worshiped by some but it belies a deep undercurrent of cruelty, ruthlessness and the devaluation of human life, you say? He fixates on a particular woman and does unspeakable things in order for them to be together in immortality, you say? Wow, this book has a really similar premise to Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, a book that I read about a year ago at the beginning of this project!
I especially loved the way that both books had so much to say about key events in the development of black history both Africa and the United States, from settlement to slavery and the Jazz Age. But while Wild Seed is mainly a rumination on society-building, colonialism and eugenics, I think My Soul To Keep is more interested in examining the dynamics of the relationship between Jessica and David as an abusive relationship. When the story begins Jessica practically worships her husband, convinced that she is incredibly lucky to have a man as perfect as David. Her loved ones are not so convinced - they believe that all the "perfect man" jazz is just a front. They can't quite put their finger on what it might be a front for at this point, other than a man who isn't the perfect partner Jessica thinks he is.
It's there in the pedestal that she places him on, a pedestal that he actively encourages her to place him on, further tipping the balance of their relationship from one of mutual equal regard into one of hero worship. It's there in the condescension and dismissal of emotions, the way that Jessica sometimes leaves interactions with David feeling guilty and belittled without knowing why. There were several scenes in the early part of the book that left me shocked at how effectively Due portrayed the kind of insidious, very subtle manipulation of emotions that characterize the early stages of abuse:
“It just pisses me off,” she said. “Look at the guilt trip that man has put on you. Like all you’re supposed to do with your life is sit and hold his hand. I don’t know where he gets that, but that’s not the way it works. Here you are about to accomplish something meaningful, and instead of toasting you with champagne, your own husband is making you feel like shit.”
These are certainly red flags, and what follows is a nightmarish descent as David's utter need for control over his wife and family becomes more and more apparent, intersecting with his completely warped lack of regard for human life. He begins to murder her friends and family members one after the other to protect the secret of his immortality from his wife, a bit of information that he has been withholding from her for the entirety of their marriage. He sees the utter devastation that these losses wreak upon his wife, but he continues to carry them out, lie to her about them and gaslight her until she finally starts to put the pieces together and realizes that he is more than he has claimed to be. Ultimately, he makes the decision to murder Jessica and his daughter so that he can keep them with him forever. It's incredibly difficult to see inside David's mind while all of this is happening - to see the way he lies to himself and justifies all of it, to see the sheer entitlement that he possesses, and to see the way that he genuinely thinks he is doing a justifiable thing by murdering everyone his wife loves and then murdering her and his young child.
"And you were so afraid you wouldn’t find a man that you put up with it."
The most devastating part of the book is Jessica's desperate attempt to escape, a flight that ends in failure and ultimately the death of her daughter. The second most devastating part of the book is watching her doubt herself and dismiss warning signs, all the while knowing as the reader that her story's ending trembles on the verge between tragedy and a near miss. It's entirely reminiscent of the exact processes that abused partners go through in real life- everything from the perpetual self-doubt to the incredibly difficulty and danger that accompanies the act of trying to leave an abuser.
Just as Anyanwu forges her own path away from the cruel breed of immortality that Doro represents in Wild Seed, so too does Jessica champion her horrific experiences at the end of My Soul to Keep, deciding that she will devote her immortality to making the world a better place. As hopeful as this is in its own way, it was largely overshadowed by the skillful horror of what I'd just witnessed occurring over the course of the book.
Spoilers follow, as well as discussions of domestic violence and the murder of a child.
So What's It About? (from Goodreads)
"When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to keep Jessica and his daughter with him forever."
What I Thought
An African immortal, you say? He immigrates to the New World and experiences key parts of black history, you say? His long life might cause him to be worshiped by some but it belies a deep undercurrent of cruelty, ruthlessness and the devaluation of human life, you say? He fixates on a particular woman and does unspeakable things in order for them to be together in immortality, you say? Wow, this book has a really similar premise to Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, a book that I read about a year ago at the beginning of this project!
I especially loved the way that both books had so much to say about key events in the development of black history both Africa and the United States, from settlement to slavery and the Jazz Age. But while Wild Seed is mainly a rumination on society-building, colonialism and eugenics, I think My Soul To Keep is more interested in examining the dynamics of the relationship between Jessica and David as an abusive relationship. When the story begins Jessica practically worships her husband, convinced that she is incredibly lucky to have a man as perfect as David. Her loved ones are not so convinced - they believe that all the "perfect man" jazz is just a front. They can't quite put their finger on what it might be a front for at this point, other than a man who isn't the perfect partner Jessica thinks he is.
It's there in the pedestal that she places him on, a pedestal that he actively encourages her to place him on, further tipping the balance of their relationship from one of mutual equal regard into one of hero worship. It's there in the condescension and dismissal of emotions, the way that Jessica sometimes leaves interactions with David feeling guilty and belittled without knowing why. There were several scenes in the early part of the book that left me shocked at how effectively Due portrayed the kind of insidious, very subtle manipulation of emotions that characterize the early stages of abuse:
“It just pisses me off,” she said. “Look at the guilt trip that man has put on you. Like all you’re supposed to do with your life is sit and hold his hand. I don’t know where he gets that, but that’s not the way it works. Here you are about to accomplish something meaningful, and instead of toasting you with champagne, your own husband is making you feel like shit.”
These are certainly red flags, and what follows is a nightmarish descent as David's utter need for control over his wife and family becomes more and more apparent, intersecting with his completely warped lack of regard for human life. He begins to murder her friends and family members one after the other to protect the secret of his immortality from his wife, a bit of information that he has been withholding from her for the entirety of their marriage. He sees the utter devastation that these losses wreak upon his wife, but he continues to carry them out, lie to her about them and gaslight her until she finally starts to put the pieces together and realizes that he is more than he has claimed to be. Ultimately, he makes the decision to murder Jessica and his daughter so that he can keep them with him forever. It's incredibly difficult to see inside David's mind while all of this is happening - to see the way he lies to himself and justifies all of it, to see the sheer entitlement that he possesses, and to see the way that he genuinely thinks he is doing a justifiable thing by murdering everyone his wife loves and then murdering her and his young child.
"And you were so afraid you wouldn’t find a man that you put up with it."
The most devastating part of the book is Jessica's desperate attempt to escape, a flight that ends in failure and ultimately the death of her daughter. The second most devastating part of the book is watching her doubt herself and dismiss warning signs, all the while knowing as the reader that her story's ending trembles on the verge between tragedy and a near miss. It's entirely reminiscent of the exact processes that abused partners go through in real life- everything from the perpetual self-doubt to the incredibly difficulty and danger that accompanies the act of trying to leave an abuser.
Just as Anyanwu forges her own path away from the cruel breed of immortality that Doro represents in Wild Seed, so too does Jessica champion her horrific experiences at the end of My Soul to Keep, deciding that she will devote her immortality to making the world a better place. As hopeful as this is in its own way, it was largely overshadowed by the skillful horror of what I'd just witnessed occurring over the course of the book.