This is a family saga with lots of secrets, intergenerational storytellers across three generations, a strong sense of place, and lots of family drama. I so enjoyed the creative, accomplished writing, with: varying voice (she writes in first, second, and third person) and largely in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).

What an impressive debut. Wow. Foote seamlessly tells a generational tale that weaves together intricately yet perfectly and I was stunned from the first page to the last.

Author Kim Coleman Foote calls this a biomythographical book - and that was enough to intrigue me. The book is based on black two families after the Great Migration who settle in New Jersey. It's a fascinating story - really pulling the reader in and keeping them interested the whole time. The reason I withheld one star is that I found it difficult to follow at times - there are a LOT of characters involved and I wasn't always totally sure I knew who was who and what was happening. It honestly didn't matter too much though - I was just enthralled. The audiobook version was very well narrated and brought a lot to the story. I'd certainly recommend this book - but maybe with a notebook next to you so you can make a family tree and lots of notes!

“You let yourself get sweet on one for a year or so until he tried to smack you – in public, no less – when you refused his marriage proposal outside the movie theater. You blessed him out and struck his face with the metal edge of your purse, catching him off guard, and kept swinging until his chin got sliced, and he fell to the pavement. Then you wipe off your purse with your hankie, muttering how he made you late for the movie, and it starred Clark Gable, your favorite white man on Earth too.”

This book is a work of fiction, but is based on family legends and actual events in the author’s family. It is enhanced by family photos. It tells the story of Celia Coleman and Lucy Grimes and their descendants. Celia and Lucy left the South and landed in Vauxhall, New Jersey. I was attracted to this book because the blurb mentioned Vauxhall. One of my uncles lived there, but I never imagined that it would be featured in a book.

Celia and Lucy were both strong characters, and not completely sympathetic. They had several children, were widowed early and worked all their lives. Nothing dramatic happens in the book. It just tells you what life was like for large, struggling families, and it’s a glimpse of history. Although all of the dialogue had to be invented, it felt very real. The book is told from multiple points of view, including Lucy’s daughter Bertha and Celia’s son Jebbie, who marry. There were so many children and grandchildren that I eventually gave up trying to keep track of them.

I received a free copy of this ebook from the publisher, but I wound up listening to the audiobook. It was narrated by Bahni Turpin and Dion Graham, who were excellent as usual.

Exceptionally written, this dark story blends fact and fiction to develop a memorable world. It’s dark there - unhappy and hopeless. It’s the story of the Great Migration. Black families headed north in optimism, but most often ended up in a world full of unfairness, cruelty, and unhappiness. This is a story of families caught in a life with few expectations, with little hope of better.

I think this book will work much better in print. The e-galley is a bit confusing. I like the touch of the family pictures, but it was hard to tell who was who and who was telling which part of the story, since there are multiple narrators. It's a hard story to read-though very important! Two families moves north during The Great Migration. Their lives are supposed to be easier--but is it really? We follow mostly the women's perspectives, and my heart hurt for them throughout most of the book. They were good women, wanted to be good mothers and good wives, but had so much on their plates and so much thrown at them.

The multi generational story of the families of Lucy and Celia, two women who meet on a northbound train from their homes in the south to New Jersey, in hopes of a better life. During the Great Migration, many families sought employment, housing, and schooling to escape the racism and poverty of the South. Many were sons and daughters of slaves. Celia and Lucy find themselves widowed, struggling with the responsibility of raising their children alone. The story is multi- generational and includes the voices of the children, husbands, and grandchildren. Another American story, Coleman Hill is a hard read. Domestic violence, poverty, child abuse, and racism were present in the north as well. Most heartbreaking is the sense of lost hope and the struggles to make life work against impossible odds. I give a nod to Kim Coleman Foote for writing this brave and mesmerizing story, the story of her family and a story that is part of this countries history as well.

This is a story of two friends Lucy and Celia and their families, who move to the “Promised Land” from the South post slavery. The Promised Land is New Jersey where they expect better jobs, less discrimination and an overall better life. The story goes on to the second and third generations. I didn’t care for the writing, sometimes I had a hard time to decide who is talking and certainly had a very hard time keeping track of all the characters. The timeline was also confusing, sometimes in the present, sometimes in the past. None of the characters had my empathy, spousal abuse, infidelity, alcoholism, most of the male characters had very negative traits. I find it hard to believe that in a large family, not one of the male characters had a positive image. Overall, no more than three stars.
I received a complimentary copy, opinions are my own.

Thank you to the author Kim Coleman Foote, publishers SJP Lit, and NetGalley for an accomanying widget. All views are mine.

Opening quote: People will go after you for combining poverty and abuse. . . . [P] eople will say there’s poverty without abuse, and you will never say anything. . . . This is a story about love, you know that. . . . Because we all love imperfectly. —Elizabeth Strout, My Name Is Lucy Barton loc.44

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. This writing is so gorgeous holy shit. The intense beat keeps the book moving even though I haven't read anything this heavy since ROOTS. I can't even pick a passage, at least not yet, because the whole thing is so moving...

2. Her descriptions of human state are wonderfully and terribly detailed. For example, accute addiction: You ain’t gotten off the parlor sofa in days, and you know you need to. The state’ll take away your children and the landlord’ll run you out the house if you don’t get back to work, but right now , you can’t move too good. Your limbs feel stuffed with lard. Your head too, and you no longer gotta raise it to smell yourself. Sticky streaks of Four Roses whiskey all over your mouth, but ain’t nobody to see or smell you but the children. loc.118. Miscarriage and assault: Bertha is bleeding from many parts. She feels the warm mushiness between her thighs, glimpsed it through her torn stockings, can taste it in her mouth. And yet , there’s so little pain. loc. 1119

3. She writes a lot about family violence and displaced emotion that expresses in such destructive ways. Check chapter "The Pose"

4. I love the role of faith in this book, it takes many different shapes: Face wet, she slowly pushes herself up to kneeling and peers at the gilt-framed placard of Jesus above the bed. He isn’t, of course, looking at her. He never does. His gaze is fixed perpetually toward his heavenly father. ...Her gaze roams higher, to the ceiling, and she clasps her hands beneath her chin. ...She feels ashamed that she didn’t think to call on Him first for help. Doesn’t Pastor Mobley stress from the Bible, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”? ...And yet she’s turned to other people to solve her problems,... And did the Lord not say, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye”? But the truth of the matter is that some part of her has been holding anger toward Him ever since He called her mama home. And now, for doing the same with Solomon. But you got a plan for everything, don’t you, Father? A plan, she reminds herself, that is beyond her humanly comprehension or control. loc. 572

5. Brilliant use of the second person, I mean really brilliant 🤌 As Jim raved, jabbing his curled belt at you, you’d stand firm and glare at that mean-faced ranting man your husband had done become, and find yourself wanting your maw’s curse to kick in quick. More so when Jim would yank Jebbie away from you. Cuz instead of hitting you like he probably wanted, Jim took out his wrath on your boy. He’d beat Jebbie with the belt, muttering the same things your maw’s husbands use to say about Johnny. He too soft. He cry. You hovers too much. loc. 773

6. Stars truly strong women. After Jim passed, you kept your promise of having one husband, and your neighbors was surprised when you ain’t remarry. Already got a man of the house, you’d think. Don’t need two. Men seemed to disagree. They kept trying to court you. You let yourself get sweet on one for a year or so until he tried to smack you— in public, no less— when you refused his marriage proposal outside the movie theater. You blessed him out and struck his face with the metal edge of your purse, catching him off guard, and kept swinging until his chin got sliced and he fell to the pavement. Then you wiped off your purse with your hankie, muttering how he made you late for the movie, and it starred Clark Gable, your favorite white man on Earth too. loc. 799

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. It's a little difficult to establish, without some backtracking and such, the timeline of the chapters relative to each other, and how the characters in each section relate to each other. Or to the narrator, which is perhaps most important since some sections are in written in second person. Isthis the point? Being lost in personal history? Lost from it?


Rating: 5
Recommend? Yes!
Ratings:
Cover: 4.2
Concept: 4.7
Character Work: 5
Settings / World Work: 5
Narrative: 5
Pacing: 4
Plot / Logic: 4.3
Ending: 5
Steam: n/a
Style: 5
Overall Rating: 4.69 rounded up to 5

Star Rating: 5
Recommend? Omg Yes!
Finished: August 20 2023

I will be thinking of this book for a long time. The character development, setting, and pacing were all on point. The writing was wonderful as well.

It was an interesting book How 2 families came up from the South and had different ideas. How to raise their children?. C e l r a coleman was a very strict personal Toward her children. Her husband dies, so she was trying to raise The children by herself. She had a friend named Lacey who also had children. But she had a really evil mother-in-law living with her.. Her husband dies as well. And she carried on. Much better than Celie.. Cecil like to drink a lot to kill the pain this was in the twenties. Every chapter in this book had a picture of the story being told and I think that really gave credit to the book. Cecil had a Son Named J e b he liked lucy's daughter call bertha. Everybody had a problem with this book because the parents were very strict especially cecil. Even the grandchildren were messed up as well. They came up on the South to hope for a better life for their children. But sometimes I do not turn out that way.. Bertha had a lot of problems she had children, but she did not raise them. Because cecil kicked her out of the house. Even their father didn't even raise them he lived with a woman. Everybody turned out good at the end of the book, but you can see how violence and drink and do not go in hand. Everybody paid a price in this book by getting hit. Everybody wanted a better life, but sometimes they did not turn up that way. Rosie had children, but she didn't take care of the mother, except during the week when she wasn't drinking. I think they had to cope with this. Because they went through the depression And W a r Then through the Civil rights movement.

this is a truly wonderful read! I was captured by the very first page and I could not put this book down.The complex characters, the vivid details, heartbreaking and inspirational, How much heartache and unimaginable pain should someone have to bear? Yet rising about it all to move forward into the future. Having the honor to read this story through netgalley was such a gift! thank you for writing this story, it touched my heart and my soul! This is a real page turner and a must read!

What fa fabulous combination of family history and creative fiction! I found this book to be extremely relevant and appreciated that it showed that family is blood but also history. Thanks #NetGalley

This story follows the lives and descendants of two friends: Cecilia and Lucy. They both leave the brutal reality of the post civil war south in hopes of finding a better life in New Jersey. But life is harsh in a different way up north and both women are soon widowed with a handful of children to support. But when Cecilia’s daughter Bertha and Lucy’s son Jeb get together in act of impropriety, it sets off a chain of generational trauma that runs deep through both women’s kids and grandkids.

This story is loosely based on the author’s family and highlights the trauma that is passed down from one generation to the next. Cecilia and Lucy were so different yet their struggles were similar. While Lucy was known as the mean grandma, one can see how life hardened her to be that way and how difficult it can be to break the cycle of trauma and hardship.

Thank you to @netgalley @zandoprojects @sjplit for this early digital review copy.

This is a super original and important novel. The writing style was not for me, because I don't usually like to read dialects, but I can appreciate the authenticity of it. The multi-family member POV style was one that I think makes this novel stand out. Although this wasn't my type of novel I think it will be one that holds broad appeal.

The audio may be more engaging, but this book didn't interest me much. The book's disjointed mesh of three stories did not meet my high expectations from the blurb.

The Great Migration is something that tends to get overlooked amidst tales of life under Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. Reading the description for Kim Coleman Foote’s new novel – based in part on the stories and experiences of her own ancestors – proved too interesting to pass up. Coleman Hill follows three generations as they move from the deep south up to New Jersey in the early decades of the 20th century and work to build a place for themselves and a future for their children. While they seek to escape the ever-present threat of physical danger, their lives up north aren’t exactly what they expected them to be, and they carried some of the violence with them, passing it on with the ingrained fears and truths learned from their own parents and grandparents with their memories of surviving slavery.

The Coleman and Grimes families began as friends when both moved north and settled near one another in Vauxhall, New Jersey but it didn’t take long for the challenges of life start to force them apart. First, Celia Coleman’s husband grows increasingly violent as his drinking gets worse and then suddenly, he’s dead and she is on her own with several children to provide for on her own – either that, or she needs to remarry, which is what Lucy Grimes suggests. Of course, when the shoe is on the other foot and Lucy Grimes’ husband is the one being buried and her family who needs providing for, she begins to understand why her friendship with Celia hasn’t been the same. But it’s not until their children become involved with one another and are pressured to marry for the sake of appearances (that are fooling no one), that the ex-friends become estranged and embattled family. The generations take out their frustrations on each other even as they strive for better and to be better than their parents’ and grandparents’ examples. How many generations will it take for the Colemans and their extended family to make peace, with themselves and with each other?

Given the description for Coleman Hill, I was expecting tension and conflict but wasn’t anticipating quite the level of physical and emotional abuse that is present throughout the story. At the same time, the author does an excellent job of tracing the roots of the violence on display, showing how some of it is likely emblematic of generational trauma – explaining without excusing. Switching perspectives and showing certain events from different angles and with characters justifying and rationalizing their roles in what happened as needed, it somehow adds weight and layers of horror to the violence on the page. With all that, it certainly wasn’t an enjoyable or easy book to read, but it was compelling.

Actually, the impact of switching perspectives and seeing the characters through time as well as through the eyes of their children and grandchildren as the story progresses, might be my favorite element of the book. The ways they grow and shift to adapt to new circumstances – or the ways some of them simply dig themselves deeper into their beliefs and habits, regardless of how they hurt those around them in the process – is fascinating and engaging. The generational divide and how parents and children interact (how grandparents and grandchildren interaction) rings heart-breakingly true with each side playing favorites whether they’ll admit to it or not, going to incredible lengths to protect one another in some circumstances while writing each other off (and worse) in other instances. Family legend and the truth blur together with time until all that’s left are physical detritus and emotional imprints.

Coleman Hill will be available September 5, 2023.

What an interesting and unusual story about the Great Migration. While the Coleman and Grimes families were part of the northern move of black Americans, they didn’t make it all the way up to New York City as so many did. No, they stopped in New Jersey.

This fictionalized “biomythography” of Kim Coleman Foote’s family helps the reader understand the struggles faced by these migrants and their various responses to those challenges. It is a multi-generational study that allows the reader to see the evolution from slavery to the Jim Crow south to the early years of the northern migration through to the 1980’s.

In addition to wonderful characters and interesting stories, this book is beautifully written. It just flows. There is also the benefit of photographs of the actual people that begin every chapter.

This is a wonderful book that shows us a slice of American history rarely written about.

I read this immediately following a similar book about several generations of a Black family that I loved. There are a lot of characters in this book to keep track of and then I kept getting them confused with characters from the other book. I am sure if I had read the two books a month apart, I would have appreciated this book much more than I did.

Coleman Hill, by Kim Coleman Foote, is an interesting book and I really enjoyed the inclusion of pictures that go along with the story.
For me, I found it difficult to keep up with all the names and places. While I found the word choices and conversations realistic and easy to read, parts of the novel were somewhat confusing and had me scanning back to see what I'd missed. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC ebook that I read and reviewed.