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A review by gabsalott13
Whiskey & Ribbons by Leesa Cross-Smith
5.0
I don’t think I can adequately express how much I loved this book, but I have to try! In her first novel, [a:Leesa Cross-Smith|6569545|Leesa Cross-Smith|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1393977141p2/6569545.jpg] proves just how much we needed her work. Whiskey & Ribbons is a devastating, intimate, lover’s knot of a book, and so far it’s my favorite of the year.
Without spoiling too much, this is the story of the Royce Family, namely Evangeline, Eamon, and Dalton Berkeley-Royce. When Eamon, a Louisville police sergeant, is killed during a house call, he leaves his wife Evangeline, their unborn son Noah, and his adopted brother, Dalton, to figure out how they will live without Eamon as their glue. The story is told from the perspectives of Evangeline, Eamon, and Dalton, all at slightly different times in their lives. I REALLY enjoyed the overlapping time periods, because you gain a sense of how these characters experience the same situations on entirely different plains. It’s perhaps most interesting that Leesa Cross-Smith chooses to place Evangeline’s perspective in a present snowstorm, while the men mostly narrate (read: are stuck in) the past.
Throughout the book, I was most drawn to the brothers’ perspectives, which is usually never the case for me. Cross-Smith knows just how to capture the emotional incompetence and emotional attempts of men, so that their failures are presented alongside their earnest intentions to do right by their wives and children, and their glowing instances of brotherhood. It’s a refreshingly well-rounded way to tell a love triangle (though honestly, this is like a love pentagram), and makes it so that no character comes across as “better” than the others. When reading this book, I felt like all its guilt and grief were in 3-D, making it super painstaking to determine the "right choices" before and after Eamon’s death. Never in this book do you not empathize deeply with a character being described, because you never feel any narrative distance from any of them. Cross-Smith takes us way past the edge of their emotions, and I’m so thankful for that.
I would fly through these chapters, and then not read it for a couple of hours because I didn't want to finish the book, and have the story be over. I felt ALL OF THE WAYS about every situation, and I know that it’ll be super hard to leave this one behind. I don’t want to say too much more because I want everyone to read it, immediately!
P.S. In addition to her insular depictions of love and loss, Cross-Smith is also making a larger point about fictive kinship and surrogate parenthood, both of which have sustained many black communities. Like I said in my review
of [b:An American Marriage|33590210|An American Marriage|Tayari Jones|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1491493625s/33590210.jpg|54403192], we don’t see enough of these situations celebrated in literature, though it’s so, so common and important for many people's upbringings. I’ll leave y’all with Dalton’s heartbreaking conversation on page 90, of which I’ll just quote a bit: “I grew up with a man who wasn’t my biological dad, but he’d do anything for me. So there are also these guys out here doubling up. Pulling twice their load without complaining…”
Without spoiling too much, this is the story of the Royce Family, namely Evangeline, Eamon, and Dalton Berkeley-Royce. When Eamon, a Louisville police sergeant, is killed during a house call, he leaves his wife Evangeline, their unborn son Noah, and his adopted brother, Dalton, to figure out how they will live without Eamon as their glue. The story is told from the perspectives of Evangeline, Eamon, and Dalton, all at slightly different times in their lives. I REALLY enjoyed the overlapping time periods, because you gain a sense of how these characters experience the same situations on entirely different plains. It’s perhaps most interesting that Leesa Cross-Smith chooses to place Evangeline’s perspective in a present snowstorm, while the men mostly narrate (read: are stuck in) the past.
Throughout the book, I was most drawn to the brothers’ perspectives, which is usually never the case for me. Cross-Smith knows just how to capture the emotional incompetence and emotional attempts of men, so that their failures are presented alongside their earnest intentions to do right by their wives and children, and their glowing instances of brotherhood. It’s a refreshingly well-rounded way to tell a love triangle (though honestly, this is like a love pentagram), and makes it so that no character comes across as “better” than the others. When reading this book, I felt like all its guilt and grief were in 3-D, making it super painstaking to determine the "right choices" before and after Eamon’s death. Never in this book do you not empathize deeply with a character being described, because you never feel any narrative distance from any of them. Cross-Smith takes us way past the edge of their emotions, and I’m so thankful for that.
I would fly through these chapters, and then not read it for a couple of hours because I didn't want to finish the book, and have the story be over. I felt ALL OF THE WAYS about every situation, and I know that it’ll be super hard to leave this one behind. I don’t want to say too much more because I want everyone to read it, immediately!
P.S. In addition to her insular depictions of love and loss, Cross-Smith is also making a larger point about fictive kinship and surrogate parenthood, both of which have sustained many black communities. Like I said in my review
of [b:An American Marriage|33590210|An American Marriage|Tayari Jones|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1491493625s/33590210.jpg|54403192], we don’t see enough of these situations celebrated in literature, though it’s so, so common and important for many people's upbringings. I’ll leave y’all with Dalton’s heartbreaking conversation on page 90, of which I’ll just quote a bit: “I grew up with a man who wasn’t my biological dad, but he’d do anything for me. So there are also these guys out here doubling up. Pulling twice their load without complaining…”