Centuries later, Ailey is visited in her dreams by a “long-haired lady” who helps her to uncover their shared story.ĪLSO IN BOOKPAGE: To write her debut novel, celebrated poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers learned to claim her rural Southern roots.įrom slavery to freedom, discrimination to justice, tradition to unorthodoxy, this story covers large parts of not just of Ailey’s heritage but also America’s. The story begins with a formerly enslaved man and his acceptance into a Native tribe, the first fateful moment of a vast history. We jump, sometimes dizzyingly, across space and time to trace her family line, and the result is a dazzling tale of love and loss. Du Bois, celebrated poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers weaves an epic ancestral story, showing that where any one person comes from is much more complicated than charts and graphs.Īiley Pearl Garfield, a young Black girl with a big family, takes center stage, and the history and intricacies of her ancestry drive the novel’s plot. In her debut novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Even when science reveals these secrets about our bodies, however, ancestry and heritage are still complex elements of our personal identities. Just pluck out some hair follicles or scrape your cheek for some cells, send them to a lab far away, and they’ll determine your genetic makeup. Nowadays, it’s easy to find out where you came from.

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