I loved Jerkins' first book, so I was happy to read this mix of memoir and travelogue and history. A lot of research, a lot of heart.

Morgan embarks on a journey to piece together her own history in Wandering in Strange Lands. That journey served as a conduit for her to investigate the complicated history of Black people in America, beginning with their arrival on slave ships and continuing through the Great Migration and into the present. She masterfully weaves her personal story, her family's story, and the stories of those she interviews to create a work of art about Black history, hope, and pain.

Unfortunately, I did not finish this book. Although I loved the premise, I struggled to get into the story. This is a book I will try again though because I think it was more of my mindset and less of the story. I appreciate everything else Morgan Jerkins writes and definitely want to learn more about migratory patterns of people, especially with my own family being part of the Great Migration.

This is a DNF for me. I got 50 pages in and gave up. I think Jerkins was trying to tell an intimate personal narrative around the broader phenomenon of the Great Migration which is a very tall order considering the Pulitzer Prize winning text “The Warmth of Other Suns” that centered around the same subject. Explorations of topics such as Blacks relationship to water and the Gullah people losing their land felt cliche and shallow. Has anyone read it? What were you alls thoughts? Should I pick it back up?

This book...is beautiful. Jerkins’s book is on my list of all time favorite book. Her writing seemed to jump around at the beginning and I really thought I was not going to like it. Then I realized water was a theme that kept popping up. I also saw that her writing that seemed to jump around really was more like floating on a raft traveling down a crooked river, meandering into the various tributaries. Jerkins used her own story of discovery to highlight the historical astrosities that have plague America since colonization. I highly recommend this to everyone.

Morgan Jerkins' debut THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING was my favorite book of 2018 so I was eagerly awaiting this one. I was not disappointed. While it didn't strike the same gut-wrenching chord of her first book, WANDERING IN STRANGE LANDS is a masterpiece of reported memoir. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the Great Migration or genealogy. While it is specific to Jerkins' family history, it also brings to life lesser-known moments of American history, such as Black Indigenous folks and the Trail of Tears. Absolutely fascinating book with a skilled storyteller at its helm.

I enjoyed this book. I love memoir, family history, and cultural history, so I already knew I was going to love it before I started reading. I listened to Jerkins speak about the book with Kiese Laymon at a virtual event hosted by the Strand, too, so I was double sold on this book.

Jerkins is a wonderful writer. The book chronicles her travels, her meetings with genealogists, historians, and locals, as she sets out to uncover her family history from Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and LA. She lets us into her family life, her personal history, her growth and learning experiences, the revelations about her family and their past, as if we readers are her beloved friends.

One of my favorite things to learn about people are their family stories. Where people have come from, the family myths, legends, the surprising truths you never really believed that get passed down generation to generation. Digging into family history has a way of making us face some uncomfortable truths, and how we are situated in the present as a result of that very real past. Sometimes it can force us to face the things we'd rather overlook, sometimes we find pride, or shame, some things we'll never completely know for sure. I loved hearing Jerkin's journey through all of these feelings and emotions.

I learned a lot about the history of the areas Jerkin's visited, things I didn't know before, about the people that lived there before and up to the Great Migration, and beyond. The history told here is not often taught, but it is so important.

I read this after having read The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. It's wild how well The Vanishing Half and Jerkin's Wandering in Strange Lands exist in conversation with one another. They cover a lot of the same histories and peoples, the construct of race, the notions of passing or not passing, how Blackness manifests in so many ways. If you've read this book, I highly recommend checking out the Vanishing Half. And if you've read the Vanishing Half and are considering reading this one, DO IT. I wish folks would read them as a set together. I wonder if the authors know each other and have spoken about the uncanny parallels between their two books, both published around the same time, too. I love it.

Thanks to #NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wandering In Strange Lands is a lovely exploration of the myths, misconceptions and meaning of the Black American identity. It is a blend of history, anthropology and sociology, but one of the drawbacks to the amalgamation of different areas of study is that when you think Jerkins is going to delve heavily into the history she does not and the same goes for the anthropology and sociology presented in the book, yet at times it reads like a personal journal chronicling her encounters, emotions, and edification. I think I enjoy this aspect most seeing part of the south, midwest, and west through her eyes.
Adequate research is presented on four regions: Low country and the exploration of Gullah Geechee people and their preservation of African culture, Louisiana Creole where she explores her Creole roots and the ambiguity of race in terms of Blackness in America, Oklahoma traversing the trope of Black people having Native American ancestry and Los Angeles where Black people, from all across America were California dreaming, or would those dreams being be deferred?
A common theme which intertwines each segment of the book is the massive theft of Black land and property that occurred in these regions This theft of land was acquired mostly one of two ways legally with the help of the federal, state and local governments and/or through the fear and intimidation of racial terrorism causing Blacks to flee their lands. Makes one wonder how exactly are Black Americans to pull themselves up by their boot straps when one keeps stealing your boots?
In sum, Wandering in Strange Lands is an uneven yet worthy read particularly if one is neophyte in Black American history and interested in a nuanced exploration of Black American identity and culture. I rate it 4 stars.

This documentation of a personal journey #BackSouth to trace family lineage after The Great Migration highlights spiritual growth and the growth that comes from research. Jerkins seeks to answer how memory can be tainted or lost from movement. Jerkins intentionally narrates the shifts in her spiritual growth and growth as a researcher while learning more about her family and tapping into her ancestral memory.

This narration, similar to This Will Be My Undoing, discusses painfully awkward experiences and realizations that come with a nuanced Black identity. Controversial themes such as Black folks enslaving other Black folks and continuing to benefit social and financially, as well as the conspiracy of Black folks having First Nations’ ancestry that was not detected in DNA tests and databases, are explored. I highly recommend reading if you are interested in exploring your own lineage to observe the process it takes to uncover family secrets and preserve family memory.

Wandering in Strange Lands does double work in genre as memoir and a history of the Greta Migration. Jerkins’s research is clear, precise, relevant and questioning throughout the text, giving the reader insight to problem of the fragmented ways history is told and struggle to find the truth. Jerkins puts herself in experiences, immerses herself in place and allows herself—and by extension the reader— to reckon with history. The way the memoir was inserted slowed the larger narrative down a bit, but still contained gems of personal revelation and connection. Will be recommending for my students as a text for Af Am literature class.

In Morgan Jerkins pilgrimage to discover more about her family’s roots she examines why Black people left the south. Its filled with lots of emotional examples from the most recent to centuries ago. This is not just a narrative, she has done a lot of research, backing up her stories. As a storyteller, I was most moved by how oral storytelling has all but disappeared. That as people have tried to move forward, they neglect to remember some of their strongest connections to the past through oral storytelling.

Part history and part memoir, this book explores how the Great Migration displaced generations of Black people throughout the U.S. It’s a deeply personal and moving exploration, as Morgan Jerkins recreates the journeys her own ancestors took across the country, from Georgia to Oklahoma to California and beyond.

I am completely in awe of this book. Jerkins' travels, research, and personal family history are perfectly blended, and her narrative voice is incredible. The essays were captivating, moving, and thought-provoking. This needs to be made into a documentary immediately!

During the Great Migration, over six million black people left their Southern rural homes seeking better economic prospects in the North, West and Midwest. Taking a personal approach to the effects of the Great Migration, Jerkins recreates the paths her ancestors took out of Georgia and South Carolina and studies the loss of familial knowledge and customs and the negative impact on personal identity that resulted from the mass migration. Her premise provides a fresh and enthralling deep dive into one woman’s attempt to understand her roots and her family’s legacy. Moreover, there is a Houston connection - Jerkins’ paternal grandfather was born and raised in Frenchtown, a subcommunity within the Fifth Ward, created when 500 Louisiana Creoles moved to Houston in 1922 seeking a better life. Thought-provoking and incisive, Wandering in Strange Lands is a fabulous and timely read.

Morgan Jerkins had heard her family’s many stories and histories throughout her life but over time she began to wonder how those tales, folk sayings, etc might relate to the reality of her background. Just who were her “people?” By tracing the Great Migration in reverse and tracking specific parts of both paternal and maternal forebears, she creates a portrait of black life in America post slavery that is likely relevant for many Black people in this country.

The author physically travels to areas from her family’s past, as close to specific sites as possible, and locates as many records as possible. She also finds local experts on the people and history. Her first destination was the Low Country of Georgia and South Carolina. And the Gullah Geechee people who have lived on coastal islands and were able to maintain many African practices. She researched the starting points for those who migrated to Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, like her mother’s family and found Georgia.

Her father was from North Carolina but tracing earlier migration patterns took Jerkins to Louisiana and to a much better understanding of Creole culture. From there she follows displaced slaves, freedmen and Indians to Oklahoma, the land at the end of the Trail of Tears. The mix of people and cultures here became a battle of sorts that is still unsettled.

Lastly, she trailed those who continued to seek a better life and headed for California. For me, this was perhaps the hardest and harshest part of the saga. Here there were few, if any, good endings, rare acquisitions of homes and properties. More often there were those who were redlined out of good neighborhoods, pushed into jobs with no future, living in Los Angeles, a city with a history of racist police.

Reading this book at this time in our country’s history feels right and powerful. The final section about Watts, South Central LA, etc, was eye opening. This was written in 2019 for publication now. What timing. While it approaches black experience through a personal filter, it also deals with general experiences. While I am white and have not had the same life experiences, I am also interested in genealogy and my forbears. I am glad I had the opportunity to read this book and learn.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Jerkins provides a very interesting and provactive read. She explored her roots and heritage on both sides of her family, traveling to Georgia, Oklahoma, and California. I did get rather lost at times when she was exploring different familial branches. I enjoyed all the family history within the context of American history. I thought it was well written.

Using her own family history as the outline, the author traces the effects of the Great Migration across America, reporting on African-American experiences and culture and racial identification, ranging from the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina, to the Creole areas of Louisiana, to neighborhoods in Houston and Los Angeles, and, the controversy of freedmen's inclusion in Oklahoma tribes. Highly recommended.

I became familiar with Morgan Jerkins' writing first on social media, Twitter specifically. I have been waiting to read her memoir with great anticipation, and I'm glad it did not disappoint. Would recommend to all adult readers, and older teens as well.

As an avid family historian, I appreciated this book. I am not African-American, so Wandering in Strange Lands was educational for me. Well-researched, with the right balance of fact and personal narrative. I would suggest this book to anyone interested in family history, African-American culture/history, or the American South.

Morgan Jerkins’ investigation of her ancestors ended up becoming almost as much an avalanche of revelations to me as it was for her. With every branch of the family that she thoroughly explored through visits, research, and interviews, she ended up revealing a flood of information about some facet of the black experience in America that was either little-known to this reader, such as the Creoles of the Gulf or black Indians, or completely unknown. I became particularly aware of my own knowledge gaps when Jerkins examined roots among her Gullah ancestors of the Lowcountry in Hilton Head - a place I have vacationed with my family and had absolutely no idea was the center of a distinct subgroup and their unique culture until now.

If you are confused by any of what I have referred to, then definitely be sure to keep an eye out for when “Wandering in Strange Lands” arrives at your library or bookstore so that you yourself may take this eye-opening journey through the past alongside its author.