I was blessed to read this book from @netgalley. I was hooked by the premise, and sweeping story kept me going throughout its 800+ 😱 pages.

This is a story about a family in Georgia, going all the way back to its roots in the native people who first occupied the land, to the introduction of enslaved people, and all the way to modern times. It’s a story about discovering your past to better understand your present. And above all, it’s a story of love and resilience.

It did take me a month to read, because he subject matter can be difficult to confront. Please check all the content warnings on this one, and if you can, BUY IT!

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THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS is a masterpiece and will be revered as such in the Western literary canon. This novel will forever stand alongside her foremothers like Ms. Toni and Ms. Zora.

What I need everyone to understand is how important this book is as an honest, yet loving, examination of American history told through the story of a Black American family from the fictional town Chickasetta, Georgia. Honoree leaves no stone untouched as the narrative explores all the themes and experiences that contribute to our shared humanity.

Phrases like "magisterial epic", "ambitious saga", and "magnum opus" have been used as descriptors for this multigenerational tale and they are accurate. At 816 pages, this novel is not meant to be read quickly. You must savor it. Don't feel daunted by the length.
The story is so engaging and so gorgeously written that readers will not be intimidated. Take your time and really sink into the pages. I've read and loved all her poetry collections but, for me, this is her most lyrical work to date.

It is evident that Ms. Jeffers put her entire heart and soul into this book. It is only right that readers commit to an equally intentional process of absorbing her words. It took me three months to finish the book because I chose to read one section per week, on Sundays, like it was church. And the benefit of that was a truly divine experience...one that I want everyone to have. You will be changed as a reader and as a human by the time you reach the last page

The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois is a powerful intergenerational, feminist, and womanist novel. Honorée Jeffers tells the racial and class history of this country through this book, not with a lot of facts and dates although they are there you are not inundated with it. But she tells this history through the human relationships of her characters past and present. The novel spans from the pre-slavery era of the 1700s to the late 20th Century covering themes such as: racism, colorism, feminism, classism, and intergenerational trauma.

The novel is centered around the character of Ailey Garfield, a young Black girl who grows up in a Northern city with her two sisters Lydia and Coco. Her parents, Geoff and Belle, come from two very different worlds. Geoff comes from a Northern light-skinned, siddity Black family, who in many cases could pass for white. Belle’s family, which the novel is centered around, is a Southern dark-skinned, down-to-earth Black family from a town called Chicasetta, GA.

There are certainly echoes of The Color Purple in this novel; it is referenced a few times. Chicasetta reminds Ailey of the town that Celie and Nettie lived in, and yet you see common themes that both Walker’s and Jeffers’s novels share, such as the power of female relationships and sexual assault within families.

Another body of work that is referenced and quoted in the novel, and should be evident in the title, is the writings of the scholar W. E. B. Du Bois. Although Du Bois never actually appears as a character in this novel, outside of Uncle Roots' memory of the scholar, you can tell Du Bois’s scholarship, especially The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880, inspired some of the themes of Jeffers’s novel. This is especially evident in the sections of the book focusing on Ailey’s Black and white ancestors. There are specific white family members who represent the white planter class and the poor white working class that Du Bois writes about in BRIA, Jeffers like Du Bois shows how racial resentment developed in the white working class characters against the Black characters. Outside of themes, the character that embodies Du Bois is Uncle Root. Root, Ailey’s great uncle, is a devotee of Du Bois who worked as a history professor and will become an important force in Ailey’s personal and professional career.

The most important and pivotal characters in this novel are Black women. Characters like Belle, Lydia, Aggie, Eliza Two, Dr. Oludara, and of course Ailey. Some of these characters get to tell their stories of achievement, trauma, and relations with low-down men. I loved the character of Ailey. In her grad school days she represents every Black person who attended a PWI and has been subjected to white nonsense and casual racism. What’s special about Ailey is that she confronts these uncomfortable situations with humor and charm. I especially loved her in the moments she stood up for herself and her family, there were times when I yelled out “Go get ‘em girl”. There were also times I got frustrated with her, especially as it relates to some of men she got involved with. What I loved the most about Ailey was the connection she had with her ancestors: her occasional dreams of the long-haired lady, her devotion to her maternal side of the family, especially as it relates to her constant travelling down South to visit and spend time with her elderly relatives, but it also extends to what becomes her pinnacle moment which is the unearthing of her roots. She even makes some discoveries that her elders in Chicasetta do not know about. Anyone who has done genealogy can relate to how gratifying an experience it is to discover the ancestors who have essentially been searching and hoping for someone to find them.

Love Songs is a very engaging and beautifully written book. Don’t be intimidated by its size because when you read it you won’t be able to stop and won’t be able to get it out of your mind. Even when it ends you will be wondering what happens next. I for one wanted to know more about Ailey and the future contributions she was going to make to her world. Lovers of American history will enjoy how Jeffers weaves history in this family’s story, especially as it relates to Ailey’s ancestors consisting of indigenous people, Black enslaved, Black freedmen and freedwomen, white elites, poor whites, and the constant power dynamics and class struggles that intersect between them. W. E. B. Du Bois would certainly be proud of this work. At the end of this novel, the reader may come to the realization that Ailey is not only an heir of her ancestors but is also an intellectual heir of Du Bois. But she is not alone, Honorée Jeffers by writing this magnificent book is also an heir of Du Bois in the ways she weaves his writings in every part of her work. Do yourself a favor, pick up this book, read it, and enjoy the ride.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy!

This is a very heavy, important, and timely historical fiction read. I would encourage everyone to pick it up. A more detail review to come.

Without a doubt, Honoree Fannone Jeffers' The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois will be my favorite book of 2021! This historical fiction novel (my favorite genre) is over 800pages of a beautifully written multigenerational family saga.

The story of Ailey Pearl Garfield who embarks on a journey of self-discovery about her family. Honoree Jeffers has clearly one an amazing and thorough research covering a family tree that takes the reader from Native American territories, the birth of slavery in the Americas, and right through to the Civil Rights Movements up to the 1980s.

I received this book as an e-arc from Netgalley (thank you) and reading on my tablet CANNOT do it any justice-LOL!

Publication date is AUGUST 24, 2021- Go pre-order your copy.

I have pre-ordered my copy so that I can completely immerse myself within the pages!!!

This is a very ambitious novel - an attempt to tell 300 years of a Georgia family's history, culminating in a modern Black woman's struggles and growth.

The historical portions of the book trace the blending of Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans in one family, focusing mainly on the enslaved and, Postbellum, "Black" members of that family. The description of slave life is unflinching. These parts of the book are excellent.

The modern sections center largely around one character, although we also get detours into the lives of her mother and sister. While I'm an old white guy and thus can't speak to the accuracy of the portrayal of black life, the interactions of Black characters with each other, as well as with whites, seem perceptive and realistic. The pitfalls of navigating a white world are authentic (and often humorous).

Sections of the book veer too much into Romance novel territory for my taste, lengthening the book without adding much. And while it is an unabashed woman-centered book, many of the male characters are not all that convincingly drawn. Indeed, one of the main male characters is extremely close to the Magical Negro stereotype, existing mainly to dispense wisdom and grace to the women of his family.

The writing is outstanding - elegant and evocative but still incisive and engaging. The dialogue between characters (and the way one character's speech patterns change depending on the race and class of her audience) is very well written.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers speaks briefly in her reader’s note that she isn’t a gardner, but says “But in my own way, I do tend to the land of my people,” stating this is how she came to write her debut fiction novel 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗪.𝗘.𝗕. 𝗗𝘂𝗕𝗼𝗶𝘀. Jeffers tends to the land of her people by writing “the Great American Novel” that sings to you. Jeffers’ novel bellows the hymns of America’s soul to us through epic journey of Ailey Pearl Garfield. In Ailey’s search for identity, she uncovers, in this intergenerational tale, her family’s heritage, past, and secrets that span from the slave trade to the present day: “But it's important to know what the truth is, even if you only say it to yourself.”

While Jeffers still claims she is not a gardner, I feel that she tends to the shame, the degradation, and the pain that circumvents the life of the southern, Black girl/woman, making her feel seen, loved, and nurtured on. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗻𝗴𝘀 pulls you in for a tight squeeze, hugs you with the warmest embrace, and declares sweet southern colloquials your way! Jeffers’ love for Black women in this novel is unmatched. Several times we are reminded: “The Negro woman is the best our race has to offer. My children, we must always cherish and love this woman. We must never leave her behind.” In this regard, Jeffers knows that to garden means to nurture something to life. And “to find this kind of love, you have to enter deep country.”

We can all become the Ailey Pearl Garfields of our families—we can tend to our own histories and uncover the beauty of who and what we are. Through its portal of home and legacy, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗪.𝗘.𝗕. 𝗗𝘂𝗕𝗼𝗶𝘀 shows readers how our stories combine and connect through our lived and shared histories on this land together as Indigenous, Black, and white. I believe Jeffers’ novel is a mighty harvest that bears a great bounty for a multitude of readers. As Jeffers begins her epic novel: “We are the earth, the land.”

Wow! What an epic novel. I'm honestly at a loss for words. I appreciated how chapters set in the past and present and link together in the end. This is a heavy book, but so impactful and I learned a lot.

Oh this book. How I absolutely LOVED THIS BOOK. A Beautiful sweeping story spanning 800 pages and many years.

The narrator, Ailey Garfield, starts off as a young girl describing her family life growing up. We learn about her sisters and mother going to her mothers ancestral home of Chicasetta, GA. We learn the backstory of various family members, past and present and how everyone is tied together.

This book is too good. Full of hope, heartbreak, upsetting moments, joyous moments. And everything in between. Highly recommending this book to everyone I know.

Thank you for this book and allowing me the pleasure of reading an advanced copy.

This historical piece had me hooked a few pages in. Yes Ms. Honorée put her foot all in these 800 pages and it didn’t feel like I read 800 pages! The words flowed so lyrically off the pages but it’s no surprise because Honorée is an amazing poet! The Love Songs of W.E.B Dubious gave us a generational lineage that educate us so effortlessly. This book deserves all it’s praises and Ms. Honorée Jeffers needs all her flowers..

Jeffers' prose is poetry crying out from the page.. Black feminism Carrying the past forward with us. This is a novel of the evolution of the very cells of her heroine. Epic. A do-not-miss novel. This is literature at its finest!

Five stars and going onto my Favorites shelf. I don’t know that I can write an adequate review for this book but I’ll try. The story is a sweeping epic history of a Black family with roots in the American south. At the center of the story is Ailey Pearl Garfield, born in the early ‘70s, the youngest of three sisters. To understand Ailey, we’re taken on a journey to meet her ancestors, learn their history and the history of the land where they lived and labored in Georgia and where Ailey’s relatives on her mother’s side live and work today. Jeffers has penned a masterful epic in that regard. Heavily researched, the story is an intimate history of the land in Georgia, which first was home to the Creek and Cherokee peoples. Like Leon Uris’ Trinity educated me on Irish history and Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth educated me on cathedrals and the Anarchy, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois has educated me about Black feminism in the United States.

What struck me about the way Jeffers constructed this novel, and at 800+ pages this was no simple feat, was illumination of how an individual is influenced by generations of ancestors. Whether we are consciously aware of the specific persons or not, whether family lore has been passed down or not, that person, that ancestor, contributes more than DNA to the home in which we grow up. Even an absence or a separation shapes not just the present generation but future generations.

Through the character of Ailey, and her mother Belle and sisters Coco and Lydia, we see how the past is pushed up against us, an invisible wall that is sometimes offering a sturdy support to lean against and sometimes blocking our progress. The wall can protect us or it can contain us. It’s doing both at once. In her adulthood Ailey begins researching her family’s history as slaves on a Georgia plantation. That research, helped by stories from a great-great uncle, gives her a lot of factual information on ancestors 2, 3, 4 generations preceding her. She learns who some of them are as people, is able to get a fairly accurate understanding of their lives. She has both black and white ancestors in her lineage, along with Creek Indian further back. But the reader knows more than Ailey. The book breaks from Ailey’s life to chapters giving the reader full genealogical history of Ailey, starting with her people from Africa, how and why they were captured and sold by other Africans to Europeans, through the Middle Passage, to the colony of Georgia in America. We know all the details that are forever lost to Ailey, can see everything that pushed down through the years from mother to daughter or from mother to son or sometimes father to daughter or father to son. All that history brings us to Ailey, born in the 1970s, attending a HBCU in the ‘90s, researching her family history in the aughts.

By the time Ailey is doing her research, the reader has learned much of the grim history she will piece together from scraps of information. And we are talking about generations of slave families on a plantation so make no mistake about how grim are some of the stories in this novel. This book goes to some very spirit-crushing places. It was difficult to be immersed for so long, page after page, with child sexual abuse and its results, to sit with the fact that a known sexual predator can be left alone so long as the children he chose and bought for his perversions were dark-skinned. I don’t mean that there are pages of graphic descriptions of abuse, but that it was perpetuated so often over so many years by some of the men in the book. Just reading and contemplating of the lives of slaves, especially female slaves, was enough to feel the heavy effects of claustrophobia. But stay with the book because Jeffers brings the reader forward. The grimness is there but it’s not all that is there and that grimness-that grime-has its justifiable and rightful place in this magnificent story. The story rewards you with Pop George and Uncle Root and Belle Driskell Garfield and her daughters, especially Ailey Pearl. The characters and their spirit rise and succeed. Not every day, because none of us succeed every day and in every way, but in the essentials – in their essence, their spirit brightens the journey.

On a personal note, this book offered much of the education I always knew was missing. I was born in 1967 and from the age of 10-16 I lived in South Carolina. My father’s job had taken us there though neither of my parents had roots in the south, so southern culture was more witnessed than experienced firsthand. I remember having so many questions in my history classes but none of the questions had form. It was just that something seemed missing. If the questions had a form, it was more like “Why didn’t any of the Black kids in my class come on the field trip to Charleston in the 7th and 8th grades?” It was a 2 hour trip on the school bus and we visited a plantation and the old slave auction house. I can assure you that the day was treated more like a trip to an amusement park than an educational experience. I used to think that Black students didn’t go because it cost money (and that in itself showed a prejudicial assumption.) But I’ve since realized it was probably because…why would any parent of a child of color let their child go on a field trip like that without being 100% sure that the trip would be well-curated for their emotional health? Having read this book, I have no doubt that was why no Black parent signed the authorization slip allowing their child on those field trips. I also remember being confused by the 1/8th rule which we learned about in history class – why did that law have to be put on the books when in my observation (remember, this was South Carolina in the early 1980s), black people were married to black people and white people were married to white people. It wasn’t until many years later that I figured out white men wanted to codify how many black ancestors one could have because they knew that the rape of women under their control was common and that births as a result of these assaults were common.

I’m afraid I’m painting a dreary portrait here and The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is decidedly NOT dreary. It is an absorbing, fascinating read and the 800+ pages go quickly. I could see my own mother in Belle Garfield, an educated woman who achieved less professionally than she could have due to the generation into which she was born, the arrival of a child early in marriage and the expectation that a mother must first care for home and child. Woven into the book is the importance of food to one’s culture and its connection to the past, how preparation of cherished dishes are handed down from generation to generation is its own sort of history. I was never interested in joining the Greek system in college but I think that had I been black and attending an HBCU, it would have appealed (though I am gay and have read George M. Johnson so that probably would have been a rough road.) No matter your racial, ethnic or gender identity, you’ll find yourself in deep understanding with a character in this book along the way and probably more than one character. Yes, if you are white, especially a white male, you will cringe at how casually accepted were the inhumane acts of slaveowners. My advice would be to read with humility and stay humble as you consider the history we are all living with, whether we know the specifics of our own ancestors or not.

Thank you to the author, Harper Publishing, and #Netgalley for the free #ARC.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is a gorgeous epic novel by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. A novel that sweeps through the ages and tells the story of one family, from the beginning of this country to modern times. With the very first sentence I was captivated and immersed into the story. This book has many strengths but it was Jeffers' poetic words (no surprise, she's a poet) that really took my breath away and made me keep reading and reading. At 800+ pages, the book is a little longer than necessary but at the same time, I wanted to keep reading!

For as long as this book is, I was captivated in Ailey and her ancestors stories every single moment. Jeffers is a master of character building , while never letting the story feel stagnant. This multigenerational saga feels like THE Great American Novel; examining the colonization of the south, and illuminating history through this family’s lineage. It also manages to be incredibly contemporary, comparing generational responses to racism and colorism. I know this book will make history. Extended reviews to be posted on @mixedreader on Instagram, and retail sites.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Harper Publishing for an advanced copy of this new historical fiction novel.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by poet and professor Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a book that at 800 pages should be more than enough for most readers, but no this is a book that you do not want to end. Even amidst the brutality and pain that radiate from certain pages, there are passages that sing and dance in the sunlight of your imagination and lift your soul up as you journey on through the narrative. The words that Ms. Jeffers uses, the way Ms. Jeffers links and connects them, you don't want to reach the end, and the story holds you well past when you close the binding at the end.

Trying to discover a balance between what W. E. B. Du Bois called the "Double Consciousness', that sense that African Americans have developed to allow them to survive in these times, and in a way discovering who is is is what drives our main character. Ailey Pearl Garfield, raised in the North, a summer child of the south, tries to make sense of her two sides by embarking on a quest to find out more about her family's history two centuries of life in the South, and what it shaped in her today. A project that is not embraced or supported by her relatives, but one as she discovers, her ancestors need her to tell. As you can tell, it is not a happy story, the trauma of the past has carried up to today and the effects are still felt right up to now.

This work is worthy of all the praise it is currently receiving, and is a reading experience that will stay with you. A truly remarkable book.

What a masterpiece. It's rare to come across historical fiction told in such an interesting way and that holds its pace and character investment the whole way through. SO many unforgettable voices in this book, and the dual timeline works brilliantly. Super compelling, and brilliantly written.

This epic family saga chronicles the many branches of one family tree from the slave-trade, through the Civil War and the 20th century to the early 2000s. Woven throughout, the words of W.E.B. DuBois carry the themes of this novel and give a prelude to each section. DuBois' famously known concept of "Double Consciousness," or the idea that Black people must exist in two ways, one version for white society, and one version for themselves, is the undercurrent that flows from beginning to end of this incredible, debut novel. This novel is loving, sad, shocking, thoughtful, and beautiful with a weary all-knowing energy that pulls the reader along and invites her to think and understand. While this is a work of fiction, this story is as true as they come and thousands have lived through the generational trauma. pain, and triumph that Jeffers shares with us in this incredible work.

Thank you to Net Galley and Harper Collins for the digital ARC of this book.

This book is a hard one for me to star. For those who love sweeping family sagas, and especially those who know little intersectional black history, this is an enthralling read. If it were shorter, and it could stand to be shorter, I would assign it for my American History courses. It is compelling, and you care deeply about the characters very quickly. The author's research and obvious personal experience make this as sound as a nonfiction work in many ways. There are layers and layers and layers in each generation. Some include: Afro-indigenous history, colorism, intersectional feminism, historian's trauma, drug abuse, sexual abuse, college hazing, and so much more.

This is where I struggled. I am a historian. I teach intersectional history to the best of my ability. So, I did not learn new material here. Instead, the book was trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma. I had anxiety. stress. nightmares. Even Ailey, our main modern protagonist, triggered more trauma for me. We're of an age, and I made many of the same mistakes and saw many of the same tragedies around me as she did. I continue to have more in graduate school. I recognize many of the issues Ailey faced and how they also apply in their own form to other groups outside of academia's old boys network. I appreciate deeply Ms. Jeffers's addressing the issue of historian's trauma - the fact that uncovering trauma requires re-experiencing that trauma, and that has an impact on the people who do this work. It was just all. So. Much. But the payoff just was not there for me. I mourned all the lost knowledge, even of the traumas, which changed the story for the characters themselves. That would obviously not return. But the trauma itself remained, despite the forgetting of the details. How do you deal with what has been forgotten?

All of these things lining up with someone who deeply delves into this history is a very unique circumstance, and shouldn't deter anyone from reading the book. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, Harper, and NetGalley for an advance ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you to Net Galley and Harper Collins Publishers for the opportunity to read this novel!
I feel so honored to have had the opportunity to read Honorée Jeffers’ first literary novel. I have found over the years that poets oftentimes make the absolute best novelists and she is definitely a testament to that!

This was a very long book, however, it was enjoyable and I was sad that it wasn’t longer. The Love Songs of WEB DuBois is not only a story about a young woman’s discovery of her family history but it is also a coming of age story. Though there is one main character that ties everyone together, Ailey Pearl Garfield, there are other supporting characters that have voices that are just as integral and important to the novel. Ailey’s parents- Maybelline and Geoff, her 2 sisters, Lydia and Coco, her great uncle Root, her grandmothers, and a host of other characters help to tell the story without being too many voices.
The story tells so many of OUR stories through this family, I couldn’t help but to feel the connections. Topics such as colorism, classism, racism (of course), addiction, strained familial bonds, interracial relationships, sexual abuse, apathy, and infidelity are not shied away from in this tale. Jeffers confronts them head on through her characters dialogue and actions holding a mirror up for so many of us to see how they shape not only who we are, but also how failure to confront them can and will affect our now and future descendants.
As a huge fan of Black historical fiction, I found myself completely captivated by the stories of Ailey’s ancestors that tied in a lot of historical facts that I never knew about.
Added later because words escaped me:
Throughout the book there is a woman, the “long haired lady” that comes to Ailey in her dreams. We later find that she is one of Ailey’s ancestors. With a touch of the spiritual/super natural, I think the author was implying that Ailey and her mother, and most likely her sister, Lydia, were a bit what I would call clairvoyant because they had dreams and visions that later manifest in their or someone else’s lives. There was one part in the book when both the long haired lady and Lydia come to Ailey together in a dream/vision. They save her life in the spirit and physical world. This part of the story, amongst others, absolutely brought me down.
While reading this I had a few misty/teary eyed/ugly cry moments but I was so enraptured that I couldn’t stop myself. I am definitely that person that cries during sentimental moments so if you are anything like that, get the tissues ready. :)
After reading this I crave more knowledge about my own ancestral connections and stories about lesser known but still just as important people that paved the way for us all.
Though Jeffers is more straight forward with her writing than Toni Morrison, I cannot help but to see the similarities in the use of her language and also the incorporation of spirits and super natural elements.
I cannot stop talking about this book, and cannot wait til more people read it so that I have other people to gush about it with lol. I truly hope that she writes more books so that I can read and re read and recommend them.
I also want to say that even though it is long, this would be an excellent book club book.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is the fiction debut of poet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers chronicling the genealogical development of a family from the colonial slave trade through to the modern era. The book is ambitious and sprawling, covering many historical periods and weaving in W.E.B. Du Bois’ writing to highlight the themes that Jeffers chooses to punctuate each section. The story itself is not quite as profound as many of the Du Bois vignettes would hint, but there is power in Jeffers telling a fairly simple and straightforward story of a black family across generations that is comfortable being ordinary and respectful of its characters.

At the center of this novel is Ailey Pearl Garfield, the third and youngest daughter to Geoff and Belle Garfield. Jeffers largely focuses on Ailey’s coming of age through the 80s, but splices in chapters that connect the story to the family’s African and Native American ancestry. Ailey is a headstrong young girl who loves her Blackness and embraces her heritage. The book really hits its stride when Ailey attends an HBCU for college and comes in to her own, resisting her parents’ insistence that she become a medical doctor and instead finds her path towards a doctorate in history. This latter plot development is a clever way for Jeffers to tie in the pieces of the story set in the past around Ailey’s ancestors as she completes her thesis on her family’s hometown of Chicasetta, GA.

I admire what Jeffers sought to accomplish in this book. At its heart, it’s a story about how we should value our history and the importance of telling stories, especially those that are often lost to time as a result of who may be telling and writing our histories. I was also heartened by the joyfulness of this book – even though tragedy certainly hits the Garfield family, the book is incredibly positive with characters who love and support each other. I will note that the book is incredibly long and could be edited down by a solid 200 pages or so, but overall I enjoyed being immersed in this story and would certainly recommend.