This is a very strong contemporary saga which deserves a wide readership.īook reviewer based in Weymouth, Dorset. Stringfellow was really writing what she knows with elements of plot and characterisation overlapping her own life. There’s enough autobiographical clues in the author’s acknowledgements to indicate that Tara M.
The importance of carving out one’s own route is emphasised in both books and this can be found through education.
But every author knows the importance of leaving their readers wanting more and that is why I would give “Memphis” the slight edge. I wanted more from the lives of these women, especially August, who is a terrific character and who I felt could have been further fleshed out through her own narrative. Both are debuts by women who have made their name in poetry and whereas I felt that Fanonne Jeffers’ novel was too long “Memphis” is too short. It is time to let these impressive women have their say away from the troubles that these men cause for the family.Īt times it was hard not to be reminded of another “return home” Southern Black American saga I read recently, the critically acclaimed “ The Love Songs Of W E B DuBois” by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. The women are central, the male characters are little under-realised which is no doubt the author’s intention. She is given a first-person narrative which is interspersed by third-person narratives which focus on the other characters. We jump around a fair bit incorporating Miriam and August’s upbringing and their parents, especially mother Hazel, but the focus is on the eight years after Joan’s return to Memphis. Joan’s unexpected reaction to her cousin shows that there is a history to this family. In 1995 Miriam returns in her battered car with daughters Joan and Mya and Wolf the dog to the house she grew up in and to her sister August and her son Derek. There’s a voluptuousness to her words, a richness in description, an over-ripeness which beautifully conveys Memphis, Tennessee. Stringfellow’s debut novel focusing on three generations of a family living in Memphis could only have been written by a poet.
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