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mdaughte 's review for:
Silver Sparrow
by Tayari Jones
This morning, as I was standing on the subway, bookbag on my back, wallet in one hand and Silver Sparrow wedged tightly between the thumb and middle finger of the other, right around page 279 I gasped, laughed cynically, and said "Men ain't shit." This was no small gesture: Everyone knows that on the subway, your main concern is to not get pickpocketed and the second concern is to keep your head down, eyes averted away from the many shades of crazy that are riding with you. I had broken a cardinal subway rule, talking aloud, but the novel had pushed me out of my urban comfort zone and right into the lives of Charisse and Dana.
Silver Sparrow is a book that you gorge on, the book you keep reading even though you full and tight, eyes drooping and sleepy at midnight because you just need one more page. This is the story of a girl and her father. And, her father ain't shit.
Except, that's not (quite) accurate. Her father--though truly an ain't shit man--is also complex and complicated and sad. He is a sad, sad man who thinks he tries to do good, but only manages to destruct the lives of all the women he (probably? maybe? likely? ) cares about. Her ain't shit daddy is dangerous because he looks, walks, talks, and behaves like he would be a good man; he is the most dangerous kind of ain't shit man because he pretends to be a good man. Ultimately, it is his pretending that makes his deception so hard to swallow; the women in the novel never predict how ain't shit he is going to turn out to be.
Structurally, the novel is genius. Divided into two distinct parts, the reader gets to enter the lives of two main characters at different parts and learn how they each live through deception. Jones's is also an accomplished writer who manages to almost effortlessly weave sentences throughout that are like clues to figuring out life: "Love can be incremental" and "You can't put rain back in the sky" provide insight to the women themselves and their very complicated relationship with one destructive man.
Silver Sparrow is a book that you gorge on, the book you keep reading even though you full and tight, eyes drooping and sleepy at midnight because you just need one more page. This is the story of a girl and her father. And, her father ain't shit.
Except, that's not (quite) accurate. Her father--though truly an ain't shit man--is also complex and complicated and sad. He is a sad, sad man who thinks he tries to do good, but only manages to destruct the lives of all the women he (probably? maybe? likely? ) cares about. Her ain't shit daddy is dangerous because he looks, walks, talks, and behaves like he would be a good man; he is the most dangerous kind of ain't shit man because he pretends to be a good man. Ultimately, it is his pretending that makes his deception so hard to swallow; the women in the novel never predict how ain't shit he is going to turn out to be.
Structurally, the novel is genius. Divided into two distinct parts, the reader gets to enter the lives of two main characters at different parts and learn how they each live through deception. Jones's is also an accomplished writer who manages to almost effortlessly weave sentences throughout that are like clues to figuring out life: "Love can be incremental" and "You can't put rain back in the sky" provide insight to the women themselves and their very complicated relationship with one destructive man.