A review by ashlightgrayson
To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul by Tracy K. Smith

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

3.0

I appreciated the poeticism of the prose in Smith's narrative. However, the timeline of events is difficult to follow because it is so vague. There is some chronology to the stages of her life she explores, particularly pertaining to her marriages and romantic relationships. Other than that, she often goes off on tangents pertinent to the United States' relationship to race. She sprinkles in anecdotes about her family. Her father was a very important figure in her life. Her love and admiration for her father, especially in relation to how far race relations have come since his upbringing, are palpable in the text. I appreciated these anecdotes the most. I'm a history buff, and reading about how history affects people directly through their families is always interesting to me. As a mixed Afro Latinx individual myself, I can also relate to those parts of the narrative. Smith ties her own story into the overall narrative of the black experience within the United States. It makes her story more personal. I just would have wanted the narrative to be a bit more cohesive and tighter knit. It reads more like a long poem written in prose rather than a memoir. However, I think that this is also a matter of preference. As a disclaimer, I listened to the audiobook, so maybe this something that would have read better if I had physically read the book. Overall, it is an interesting read, though, and I would recommend it as an experimental read
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