![]() ![]() Through it all, the reader glimpses the Black men – the fathers, husbands and lovers – who hurt and adore these women in equal measure, and Stringfellow does a masterful job of layering their own hardships and complexities.įrom the very first line, you can tell the author is a poet. The central theme is about generational trauma and the enduring strength of women as a beautiful and troubled legacy is passed down from mother to daughter. The reader meets Hazel, the matriarch and grandmother, whose story starts in 1937 as she finds and loses the love of her life, and her daughters Miriam and August, who both must sacrifice and fight for their children. The book then winds through multiple point-of-view characters in a non-linear timeline. The house is both a haven, as Joan’s mother flees from her abusive husband, and the site of an unspeakable trauma suffered by Joan as a toddler. Memphis opens in 1995 as ten-year-old Joan arrives at her grandmother’s house. Stringfellow’s beautiful and haunting debut novel is about several generations of Black women living in Memphis, Tennessee. ![]()
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