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A review by cat_book_lady
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
4.0
Definitely influenced by the gold standard authors Toni Morrison & Alice Walker, and of course, W.E.B. du Bois, this is an exceptional book that wholly describes the African American women's culture in all its beauty and tragedy. Warning: this contains very explicit drug use and graphic sexual situations, so this is not for the faint of heart - and also why this received a 4* instead of 5* from me. But at the same time, the story needed the information for you to understand the horrific magnitude of their experience, and then you rejoice in their triumph of overcoming paralyzing adversity.
I loved the interweaving of generations, particularly how the "bad" moral genetic seed seemed to be handed down and became progressively more extreme as time went on. I also loved how the author portrayed such a complicated mess of inter-relations between blacks and whites that it seemed almost impossible to tell if someone had a "pure" heritage since color didn't seem to matter in the affairs of the heart (or lust of the flesh).
I did have a bit of a challenge keeping all the characters and their relations straight, even with the ancestral family tree in the front of the book. This became more difficult as she bounced back and forth between time periods. The author did tie it all up in the end, but considering how long the book was, the ending happened too fast. I can't help but wish more of the end was instead interspersed throughout the story.
Still, this is an important book, one that is rich in culture and consequences, with the family at its center.
I loved the interweaving of generations, particularly how the "bad" moral genetic seed seemed to be handed down and became progressively more extreme as time went on. I also loved how the author portrayed such a complicated mess of inter-relations between blacks and whites that it seemed almost impossible to tell if someone had a "pure" heritage since color didn't seem to matter in the affairs of the heart (or lust of the flesh).
I did have a bit of a challenge keeping all the characters and their relations straight, even with the ancestral family tree in the front of the book. This became more difficult as she bounced back and forth between time periods. The author did tie it all up in the end, but considering how long the book was, the ending happened too fast. I can't help but wish more of the end was instead interspersed throughout the story.
Still, this is an important book, one that is rich in culture and consequences, with the family at its center.