Poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ Promise is a stunning debut novel set in rural Maine during the early Civil Rights Movement (1957). Cinthy Kindred, the younger daughter of one of two black families in small-town Salt Point, narrates the story, starting with the first day of a new school year. Readers quickly learn that Cinthy’s father is the only black teacher in a small, mostly white school outside of town where the other black father, Caesar Junkett, is custodian. In addition to filling in general background, the chapter includes an attention-grabbing incident involving Cinthy, 15-year-old sister Ezra, and Ezra’s best friend Ruby, a white girl from a poor family. As the incident plays out, readers realize this friendship will soon end.

With such news as the integration of Central High School in Little Rock and President Eisenhower’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, racial tensions were increasing not only throughout the South, but also as far north as Maine. With an unexpected personnel change in the school, difficulties between the Kindred girls and Ezra’s friend Ruby, and problems with a bigoted local deputy, the once happy lives of the close-knit Kindred and Junkett families gradually become tense and even tenuous.

Add to that the history that led to the Kindred parents’ move from the South to Maine, and Griffiths creates a complex story that kept me turning pages and reading well into the night. As the plot moves forward, it also moves backward as the author fills the backstories of Kindred family ancestors as well as that of Ruby’s abusive father. Clearly marked to avoid any possible confusion, these breaks in the forward movement shed light on the characters, influence the action, and lead to a strong ending.

Filled with brutality and tragedy, Promise is also filled with love, hope, determination, and fortitude. It’s a story well worth reading. I will watch for more from Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advance reader copy.

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Well written novel that details late 1950s America in a small town in Maine. Two black sisters and their families encounter all kinds of rejection from the town. However, they find love and support within each other. Interesting to see how life in the north could be just as bad for a black family. Good book. Thanks to Net Galley for the Arc!

This was SO well written! We don’t often see how the North is just as ruthless toward Black people as the South. This glimpse of life in Maine, where it’s supposedly more safe, was eye opening and frequently terrifying, and often deeply sad. Contrasting the experience of even a poor white girl with her Black friends, shows the deep roots of hatred that bear seeds even today. Loved it. Made me think, made me cry. Most highly recommend. A stunner.

A formidable novel exposing racism for its brutality and pure ugliness. I was deeply affected by this story, leaving an indelible mark. It’s been a mighty long time since a novel has cut to my emotional core. Griffiths’ crafted a showpiece, her beautiful writing and the challenge of balancing emotions such as endurance, acuity, love, and strength while demonstrating the vileness of racism was nothing but outstanding. A story exposing the depths of racism past, present, and hopefully nonexistent in our future. A brutally honest look at racism all should read. Powerful as a whole. Anxiously awaiting more from this brilliant authoress.

“Promise” opens in 1957, the year that Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act, and the newly enacted law has set the nation on edge. “Promise” is set in New England, rather than in the more predictable south, but it is this remove from the civil rights movement that brings intimacy to Griffths’ subject. Griffiths focuses on the Kindred family, two teenagers, Ezra, and her younger sister, Hyacinth, the novel’s narrator, their dying mother, Jolene, and their father, Heron, who is employed as a teacher at Hobert, a private school in Salt Point, Maine.

The Kindred family is steeped in tragedy. In 1902, Heron’s grandparents were murdered at the hands of Christian men asserting their divine rights and economic supremacy over people prospering on a spit of land that they called Damascus — a site in Delaware that was so small that it would never be officially recognized. Hyacinth’s mother was abandoned on church steps and raised in a convent, and Heron lost an arm and a younger brother in a freak automobile accident.

Although largely ignored by the villagers who were “slightly fearful” of the Kindreds, or blithely tossed in the anonymous ranks of “Negro girls” at Hobert who were overlooked by their teacher and picked on by their peers, Ezra and Hyacinth are driven by a distinct sense of their own ability and are taught to “Stay on the Path.” This becomes more challenging as they observe Caesar Junkett, the school’s custodian and the head of the only other black family in Salt Point, suffer increasing indignities at the hands of a new teacher, Diane Alley. Miss Alley claims that Mr. Caesar stole her purse leading to his arrest by the police officer who had been stealthily terrorizing the Kindreds and the Junketts.

The tension continues to escalate when Miss Alley befriends Ruby Skaggs, a white girl who was friendly with the Kindred girls because she was so poor that “she was viewed on a level not too far above our own position.” Although Ruby was neglected by her mother and beaten by her father (who has his own hellacious backstory), she has aspirations to be a pilot and to “make new stories where she was a hero.” When Ruby feels that Irene Junkett had treated her as if she were Emmett Till’s accuser “Caroline Bryant crying crocodile tears down in Money, Mississippi,” she overreacts. The girls’ relationship is irretrievably breached and Ruby then casts her lot with Miss Alley with dire consequences for all of the characters.

Griffiths is Salman Rushdie’s fifth wife, but her considerable literary gifts should not be sidelined by her marriage to the distinguished writer. Her talent as a poet is on display in her luminous and richly descriptive writing about a close-knit family who must protect themselves from the racial violence of the time and who question whether the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the advancements of the NAACP will ever reach Salt Point. As one of the characters recites, “This world promises us harm, and there is nothing you can do about it, except to have the nerve to love your life.”

Exquisite and utterly heartbreaking. Amongst the coming of age of narrators Cinthy and Ruby, a heaviness builds over the course of this novel. This heaviness is tinged with the painful realities of racism, class, and the consequences of existing in spaces that reject you. I was enchanted by this book the whole way through, even as I dreaded what would happen.

Bravo! Well Done!

There is much to praise and unpack - but the challenge is to not spoil the story, so I’ll say: this is a beautifully and tenderly rendered tale for those who love just a tad of magical realism with their historical fiction. It is for those brave and honest enough who can accept the violent past (including animal cruelty and child/domestic abuse). Those who can stomach the ugliness of the era toward certain citizens amid the social challenges of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950’s America. Living wasn’t easy for Black folk then and dying was even harder.

Ezra and Hyacinth (Cinthy) Kindred are sisters on the cusp of womanhood who live in a rural/isolated Northeastern coastal town with their one-armed father, a teacher at the local school, and their homemaker mother. Their parents are guarded about their origins and upbringing; and as children they stay in children’s places and ask no questions (even though the truth surrounding their lineage is eventually revealed). The girls are sweet and wholesome - raised to stay on “the Path” – to be respectful, studious, observant, collegebound – in other words, destined for success.

As the girls grow into womanhood they attract attention through no fault of their own: Their rapidly maturing bodies attract attention from White men with preconceived stereotypical notions about Black women's (and men’s) sexuality). Their stellar performance at school earns top marks and placement at the head of the (overwhelmingly white) class – elite places that 1957 social politics don’t allow Black girls. It doesn’t take long for the prominent townsfolk and law enforcement to step in to ensure the Kindreds and the only other Black family in town to stay “in their place” (when all they were doing was quietly living their lives and not bothering anyone). What ensues is a series of events with tragic outcomes - many a Black family can probably relate to many aspects of the (generational and common) atrocities: wrongful incarceration, police harassment/violence, unfair banking practices, limited employment/low wages, discrimination in education, theft, loss, or ruination of property and real estate, children harassed at school by teachers and peers alike, etc. Even their childhood friendship with an impoverished, insecure, envious white neighbor (Ruby) changes as she grasps at the leverage her white skin has over the sisters.

Many scenes in the novel harken to the classic poems of Langston Hughes (Mother to Son) and Dr. Margaret T. Burrough’s (What Do I Tell My Children Who Are Black?) in which mothers/parents grapple with preparing her children for a lifetime of inequality, mistreatment, frustrations, and unrelenting setbacks. Ezra and Hyacinth are buoyed by their “village” - adults who love, support, protect, nurture, educate, and bolster their esteem. It is in the music, food, faith (in the old gods and the new), and the inherited fortitude of the ancestors that will sustain them through troubled times. Sadly, they (and many others) are taught from birth how to survive in an unjust world that upon seeing their skin tone will relegate them to a lesser status or a subservient place in society despite character, education, presentation, aptitude, or integrity. While those poems are decades old, Black/African American parents have revised the lessons into “the talk” as a means to ensure survival in the face of systemic racism and discrimination: how to deal with law enforcement, how to respond when harassed by in-store security, how to live through tough situations, etc.

The author's biography indicates a background in poetry – and she delivers! Her talents as a lyricist/poet are evident in the conjuring of note-worthy phrases, description of scenery, and the expression of the characters’ innermost thoughts and feelings. She blends the elements of song/music, the forces of nature, uses the symbolism of color and intensity of hues expertly to enhance the setting, build suspense, and foreshadow upcoming events. She blends African and African American myth, folklore, superstitions, and wisdom into the story with perfection – I could relate to many of the takeaways - easily remembering the same lessons from my parents.

I received an ARC from NetGalley for review, but I will purchase a hardcover for my personal shelves.

Thanks to the publisher, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for an opportunity to review.

4.5 = This was a powerful read and I don’t think I’ve been this affected by a novel in a while. I had to take a lot of breaks while reading, because of the horrific racism that takes place and still I was emotionally exhausted after finishing this book.

It’s a beautifully written story, but so brutal and honest. There is a lot of violence, racism, and death but on the flip side you have faith, courage, wisdom, love, and strength.

I’d recommend this to those historical fiction readers who can handle the reality of what has truly happened in this country.

Read it. You must. It’s an incredibly beautiful story of tragedy, terror, injustice, sadness, violence, grief, and so much love. Two Black sisters and their families. So much sorrow. Read it, then read it again. I will.

4.5 stars. What a gorgeous book of hope and resilience despite the pain and despair. It's 1957, but Salt Pointe is a remote town in Maine, and the Civil Rights movement is just something you hear about on the radio. The Kindred sisters are one of two black families in town. Cinthy is such an intelligent, thoughtful child. As both girls head into adolescence, their world changes and they have to rely on themselves and family to get through.

"'The people of Salt Point could indeed be fearful about the world beyond themselves; most of them would be born and die without ever having gone more than twenty or thirty miles from houses that were crammed with generations of their families. . . . But something was shifting at the end of summer 1957.'

The Kindred sisters--Ezra and Cinthy--have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs.

But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra's best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way. And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality, and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as threats to their way of life. Amid escalating violence, prejudice, and fear, bold Ezra and watchful Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they've built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival."

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

A painful tale of racism and trauma set in 1950s Maine. Griffiths has created two indelible characters in Ezra and Cindy who find themselves suddenly confronted with hatred, even from the girl they thought was their friend. This is melancholy at best and devastating in conclusion. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Beautiful writing.

I received a complimentary ARC (Advanced Readers Copy) of this exceptional novel from Netgalley, author Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and publisher Random House. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Promise of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am adding this author to my must-read list - she tells it like it is.

The 1960s and 1970s were difficult times to be a young adult in America. Black or white, male or female, rich or poor we were all pretty equally hampered or ham-strung by racial unrest, the Viet Nam war, and the evolving social mores of American life. Cities and towns were no longer isolated and allowed to mature slowly - television made sure that we were all stuck in the same boat. Comparing life from a 1950s post-WWII family to that of the 1960s and 1970s involves a very fast-forward in expectations and possibilities, but also in those many things that restrict freedom. Children from the 1990s and 2000s wouldn't even recognize that "Leave It to Beaver" world. And these children, southern black kids living in a white world in Salt Point, Maine in 1967 had many strikes against them.

This is a sad tale, based on that very real world. Thank God we have come beyond that. Nowhere near far enough, but there has been progress. Thank you, Ms. Griffiths, for reminding us of how it was. And in some places, still is. Our children and grandchildren all deserve a much better world. We as a nation have to make it happen.

The story is heart-rending. Two Black sisters growing up in a small town in 1957 encounter racism and classism as they grow up. The older sister suffers from the cruelty of her former best friend, whose family is lower in class status but is white. Cinthy, the bookish older sister, narrates. Though the family has the support of their close friends, another Black family in town, both sisters witness the racism that both sets of parents experience. As a result, they are forced to grow up too quickly.

Rachel Eliza Griffiths' novel is well written, with a searing story that I highly recommend reading. Am also curious about her photography; she's a visual artist as well.

"Promise" by Rachel Eliza Griffiths absolutely gutted me. It is a stunningly beautiful, though horrifically tragic, novel. It reads almost like poetry; the writing is rich, complex, and gorgeous. It is a no-holds-barred and non-whitewashed depiction of the Civil Rights era, and how life for Black Americans could be just as bad in the north as in the south. The characters' actions and words are realistic for the time period, so there is prevalent racism and some use of the "n-word," I fell in love with the main characters, sisters Ezra and Cinthy, and admired their strength and resiliency through much pain and hardship, and their determination to succeed in a world where they were deemed less-than simply because of the color of their skin. "Promise" is a compelling read and truly is literary fiction/historical fiction at its best. Though set in the past, this book is still very much relevant today and readers who like to delve into the past so that they can learn from it and thus create a better future will love this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the incredible opportunity and privilege of reading an advanced copy of this tremendous and important book. It is destined to be one of the best of the year.

Set in a small town in New England, Promise uses the protagonists Ezra and Cinthy (2 African American young teenagers) to develop the plot of a series of promises kept and broken. The promise of education, friendship, family, and finally life and death. Those promises are met with the reality of the times, of whites afraid of the changing landscape and the real violence that ensues. Yet, there is a plot thread of promise through the darkest of experiences. A challenging read but a good one.

This is one of those books that I would classify as a challenging read but a book you need to read. The challenging part is due to the heaviness of the subject matter including violence, abuse, racial discrimination and death.

Two black sisters, Erza and Cinthy are growing up during the Civil Rights movement in Salt Point, Maine. The girls' family in only one of two Black families in their small village. I fell in love with these two families because of how close there were to each other and the beautiful customs and get togethers shared during the story.

As the story unfolds, these families are treated differently because of the color of their skin. I felt fear in my heart knowing there was no on they could turn to for help, and that no one was on their side. Despite all of this, the families are brave and resilient and do their best to fight for what is right. These individuals are survivors despite the unfairness of the world and the racial discrimination that is so prevalent.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

What a beautifully written novel that centers around the Civil Rights movement. It’s the story of two black families, living quietly in a small New England down, that suddenly are the focus of the white community, as racial tensions become more publicized. The two sisters, who are coming of age, suddenly feel the turmoil that is taking over their lives, as they become more aware of how the white communities attitudes toward them are potentially harmful.
Griffith’s debut novel releases so may emotions, the love and closeness of two families, their fear for their children who are unaware of the potential danger and their need to protect them from the ugly world of racism, the heartbreak of loss and mourning. Her writing is poetry and her characters are well defined.
This is a book that needs to be read, as the same issues show their ugly side again. This is one that will stay with me.
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this five star debut. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this free ARC. I loved so much of this debut novel. You can see Griffiths poetic nature in the writing and the descriptive and atmospheric setting. I think it also really did not pull its punches in its depiction of the racial violence of the 50s and how it extended into the northern states as well. My one dislike is that I feel like the ending did not do the book justice. Two of our main characters are just absent from the last section of the book entirely and I really wanted to follow their journeys but then they were just gone. Overall, I give this four stars and I would read Griffiths work again but this did not fully land with me.

A powerful story , set in Maine during the late 1950’s, discussing racism, inequity, family, life and death. Cinthy and her family are only one of two black families living in their small , rural village. Their families work and contribute to their village, but are not treated as such. This debut novel for Rachel Griffiths takes the reader on a difficult journey with these families that is both heartbreaking and joyful at the same time. I truly loved the phrases “put back” and “called back”. I’ve never heard these used before, but they make the death experience gentle and kind, even under the most different circumstances.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in return for my honest review.

Two black girls live a mostly sheltered life until the tensions in their small town boil over and tragedy strikes.