The Blue is Where God Lives is a novel of historical fantasy/magical realism* written by cultural anthropologist Sharon Sochil Washington. The story features a Black American woman named Blue who goes through incredible tragedy at the start - the incoherent axe murdering of her daughter and grandaughter - and who then retreats to a ranch retreat in Texas to try to recover and understand how her life has gotten so miserable, with her feeling not just depressed and miserable from the death but unfulfilled from where life has taken her in general. But the ranch is a special place where timelines intersect and the story has Blue beginning to have visions of her ancestors from the 1800s, who wield strange magical abilities as they attempt to come out on top in a prejudiced world that has allowed them a moment of freedom, and who have their own plans for Blue.

It's a story clearly influenced by its author's own research and backstory - Blue goes to the same colleges as the author and there's an anthropologist character (and Blue winds up interested in it as well) - and to be honest, it's one that's written in a way that can be very confusing in its narrative, as the story's prologue is written from the perspective of an unclear narrator (who becomes eventually revealed near the end) and even past that the intersection of past and present timelines can be kind of funky. The result is one that feels a lot more at times like research than a coherent story - although its interesting research shown through its magical and just somehow real characters as they deal with the horrors of slavery even to those who have some privileges allowing them to get out of it as well as the horrors of poverty and oppression that follow families that come from it. And then it concludes with a conclusion that's again kind of unclear but very much seems to be a message about salvation coming from moving beyond the generational trauma of the past and into a new world where one can find fulfillmenet despite the chains of capitalism and poverty. It's an interesting book for sure, although I'm not sure how hard I'd recommend it.

Disclaimer: As you can tell from the above and below, this is a book dealing heavily with the Black Experience in America (as well as in smaller glimpses elsewhere around the world). It is also a book that relies upon Christian Themes and concepts, although it notes how the Black Christian experience was born in part out of the traditions that were left behind (and which White Slaveholders tried to stamp out) in Africa. As a White Jewish American, I don't have the same perspective or knowledge of this perspective as the author, and as such it's very likely I've missed or misunderstood parts of this work; at the same time, I feel it benefits me and other readers like me to try to hear such perspectives and thus feel this review has merit. But potential readers of this book may want to seek out reviewers from the Black Christian Perspective as well.

Trigger Warning: Rape, Incest, Sexual Assault, Slavery, etc. The book deals with struggles of poverty and racism in the present and struggles dealing with the transatlantic slave trade and beyond in the past timelines. All of the horrifying parts of those real life horrors are present here, although nothing is gratuitous and it is all used for a valid point.

Plot Summary:
Eighteen Months ago in Detroit, a woman having a fit of madness grabs hold of an axe and murders Blue's daughter Tsitra and Tsitra's young son. The news puts Blue into shock back in her home in Texas and eighteen months later the shock has led Blue to the edge, with no more money and her house about to be foreclosed upon. Then in July 2008, with almost nothing left, Blue departs for The Ranch, a silent retreat center in the Texas desert run by a strange Catholic offshoot in hopes of finding a revelation that would allow her to move forward. But what she finds there, under the guidance of the Father who helps her, is that the Ranch is built upon a strange breach in time, allowing her to have visions of people from nearly 160 years in the past, people who include her ancestors and those who shaped her very being.

In July 1848, a black man named Palmer Rose, who has escaped slavery to become the master of his own fair plantation down in free Texas, comes to a party in New Orleans with his personal slave Xhosa to get revenge upon the man who tried to sell his parents into slavery. There, amidst an impossible gathering of people across time and space, he meets a strange shape-shifting woman named Amanda, whose knowledge of time and space and puzzle magic guides her and Palmer, along with several others such as Ismay, the mulatto and magically gifted daughter of the man who enslaved Palmer, in a strange course across history. For Palmer and Amanda have seen the horrors of oppression and slavery and are not willing to sit back and let it keep happening...and Amanda has also seen their future, when their granddaughter Blue will be in a state of despair and poverty, and only Amanda's actions can ensure that there is a happy future possible for her.....

The Blue is Where God Lives is a story that uses both of its timelines to try and show the historic and institutional suffering that has befallen black people throughout American and other (we visit for a bit Cuba and South Africa for example) histories and how it has affected black people in the US and across the world throughout the present days. The story is also fiercely critical of capitalism, with its guiding Father and Amanda quoting Marx at times with ideas on capital and labor, and tries to use both of its timelines to enlighten even the naive and unknowing privileged people about the suffering their compatriots have inflicted - as shown at first through the character Ismay, who despite being the result of rape and the sufferer of incest doesn't quite realize the privilege she has has blinded her to how Black slaves and other oppressed peoples suffer and are made to suffer not due to any moral or intellectual deficiency, but due to pure evil (and indeed, she notes that the black sufferers may in fact be stronger than the whites who thrive in freedom). There's a lot of interesting themes and historical discussion here, such that it certainly seems to come from the author's anthropological expertise, and some of it is in some areas ideas that I don't see as much in other books, like how children can be something that people feel forced to have and can then result in one feeling bound and restricted, in a way that's not fair to both the children and the parents. The book does seem to conclude with the idea that only by being able to magically remove one's shackles to the institutional racism and oppression of the past can one freely be able to live a life that might end up being fulfilling.

I say "seem" because well, to be honest, this book is very much at times kind of trying to preach more than tell a story and the combinations of its two timelines - the past timeline and Blue's own more immediate past history as she relates it to the Father at the Ranch - is honestly often really confusing. There's a lot of funky timeline and magical realism-esque things going on in Amanda and Palmer's timeline, and while this is mean to be a way for everything to come together in a way to show off its themes, it often made me a bit confused as to certain characters' relations and place in time. And again it all comes off honestly as more preaching than telling a story...and while the themes and ideas being preached about are interesting and worthwhile, people will come to this expecting fiction and a story and the feeling of being preached to and philosophized to will only disappoint and distract from it all..and kind of make it all the more confusing when it then gets interwoven with Blue's own stuff. Again as I mentioned in the above disclaimer, it's possible that people with experience in Christian - or really Southern/Black Christian Faiths - may be less confused and get more from this than I do, but I can only review what I find, and what I find here is a book that has some clear interesting and important ideas but can't really convey them through a STORY and well that's the benefit of doing this through fiction rather than non-fiction.

“Your history does not control you. You control your history by taking control of who you are. Take control of who you are, and you can tell your own story.”

This is a fantastical story rooted in modern-day settings and histories but with witches and shapeshifters who wield magic to traverse time and space to alter the past and present. After losing her daughter to a violent death, Blue, a middle-aged woman, is in crisis. Seemingly born into a world where the stakes are against her, she seemingly has a lifelong struggle on multiple levels: emotionally, financially, mentally which result in poor decision-making, restlessness, and a series of losses (family, jobs, money, etc) that seem to never end.

Unbeknownst to Blue, her life has been negotiated in a cruel experiment between God and Satan (akin to the Bible’s story of Job); but via cunning, strategic bargaining, and a lot of magic, her shape-shifting grandmother intervenes to change Blue's fate. The story then aligns concepts of intergenerational curses in the form of mental illness (depression, schizophrenia, etc), poverty, early and/or obligatory motherhood, et al to unresolved spiritual warfare waged in past generations. Another persistent theme is the devastating effects of the centuries-long slave trade; the loss of knowledge, language, culture, and history which sometimes manifests into a willing state of ignorance - a desire to forget was has been deemed less than or inferior – all of which results in a people with no memory of greatness, freedom, and success.

The novel is largely Blue’s quest and a reconnection with an internal, self-determined need to heal. It occurs when she stumbles into re-membering and acquires knowledge of the past and an understanding of her history as lived and influenced by her ancestors. Her journey is buoyed by her magical family members whose yesteryear adventures introduce the reader to infamous historical personalities while navigating colorism, systemic racism, enforced disenfranchisement, amid a host of fact-based (often heartbreaking and brutal) scenarios. The book is well-researched and blends contemporary philosophies (ex: Marxism, Capitalism), social commentary, African and African-American folklore, numerology, etc. into the plotlines to create a page-turning debut that keeps hope, strength, and love in the horizon.

Thanks to the publisher, Harry N. Abrams, The Overlook Press, and NetGalley for an opportunity to review.

What a unique book! I'm so glad I received an advance copy from netgalley.com and so glad I stuck with it.

I loved the moments where it read like historical fiction and then juxtaposed that against modern times today. Were there times where I was a bit confused and wondering what timeline we were on? Yes - but ultimately I don't think I really needed to know exactly where I was to enjoy the journey. After finishing, I felt like it helped show how 'the more things change, the more the stay the same' and I also felt like it was addressing the idea of generational trauma while also being rooted in fantasy. I will also never hear the phrase 'out of the blue' and not think of this book and how those moments are when we may be most connection to something spiritual.

This is one of the most unique books I've read this year. It is reminiscent of Toni Morrison, but it clearly has its own voice. Devastating and nonstop, it will keep you dizzy until the end. It took a few chapters to get into the rhythm, but I am so glad I gave it a chance.

This is a speculative fiction book that focuses on the healing power of family and community across the generations, and also emphasizes social and economic ills against black generations as the battleground of angels and devils, experienced in a mildly hallucinatory rip in time at a physical location of historical importance to the generations. Things like being forced into motherhood and mental illness are framed as the consequence of demonic warfare on the souls of the family, emphasizes the generational instances in the frame of the Genesis creation story, and is overall way too heavy on the God for my personal taste. It's still on the better end of the debut novel spectrum, and worth borrowing from the library.

I do not know how to review this book at all. (Shocking, right?)

I can say that I am 100% blown away, baffled, intrigued, and then "BLOWN AWAY" again!!

All I can say about this book is that Washington is a "BRILLIANT" writer, and you will thoroughly enjoy reading this book.

Pay close attention to the characters, Because BLUE is Where God Lives!



Thank you, NetGalley/Sharon Sochil Washington/ABRAMS. The Overlook Press/ For this "AMAZING" eARC in advance for my honest review. My opinions are of my own volition.

Not my normal kind of read, but well written. I can see the author's talent on display, and I'm confident that those that pick it up will be moved in some way by it.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!