Library's review
Homegoing chronicles the diverging family fortunes of two half-sisters in Ghana in painstaking, often excruciating detail, from the 18th century through to the present day.
One sister, Effia, is the oldest child of Cobbe, a member of the Fante tribe, and his first wife, Baaba. As she grows up,
Esi was born to Maame and "Big Man," an Asante tribal chief who marries her when she arrives in his village after fleeing from the fire. Esi learns as a teenager about the circumstances of her mother's life, and scarcely has time to absorb this new knowledge before their village is raided by Fante warriors, who capture many of the villagers and hold them prisoner before selling them to the English soldiers. Esi and the others are taken to Cape Coast Castle to await their deportation to North America. Neither she, living in the castle's dudgeon, or her sister, married to the white man who now commands the castle, have any idea of the other's presence.
Alternating chapters introduce us to successive generations of Effia's and Esi's families. The stark contrast in the fortunes of their descendants — one family maintaining authority and power in Africa while the other is tossed and battered through slavery in America and the ongoing inequality that persists throughout — can make for difficult reading. At the same time, it's an effective way to convey that the African diaspora that came about via the slave trade is not a monolith. As Tolstoy reminded us in Anna Karenina, unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. None of the characters profiled in the book has been well-served by their encounter with the slave trade, regardless of which side they were on.
I was grateful for the genealogy chart at the beginning of the book. Each chapter was so searing in its emotional weight that I found it difficult to read more than one at a sitting, meaning that I was constantly having to remind myself of who the various characters were and where in the timeline they lived. There is nothing light or playful to break the impact of Effia's and Esi's stories, which is hard on the reader but perhaps not inappropriate. If they could live it, the least we can do is read about it, I would guess is the rationale.
I'm having a hard time thinking of who I would recommend this book to, despite the brutal beauty of Gyasi's prose, as in this description of Esi's state of mind during her time in the slave dungeon:
Hell was a place of remembering, each beautiful moment passed through the mind's eye until it fell to the ground like a rotten mango; perfectly useless, uselessly perfect.
One sister, Effia, is the oldest child of Cobbe, a member of the Fante tribe, and his first wife, Baaba. As she grows up,
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Effia doesn't understand why her mother doesn't love her. It is not until much later that she learns she is actually the child of her father's rape of an Asante housegirl named Maame. The house girl ran away the night Effia was born, getting lost in the chaos and confusion of a forest fire she deliberately set. Baaba's hatred of being forced to raise Effia results in a scheme to marry her off to a white man, one of the English colonials who occupy Cape Coast Castle, where captured Africans are taken and held until being sent to America to be used and abused as unpaid slave labor.Esi was born to Maame and "Big Man," an Asante tribal chief who marries her when she arrives in his village after fleeing from the fire. Esi learns as a teenager about the circumstances of her mother's life, and scarcely has time to absorb this new knowledge before their village is raided by Fante warriors, who capture many of the villagers and hold them prisoner before selling them to the English soldiers. Esi and the others are taken to Cape Coast Castle to await their deportation to North America. Neither she, living in the castle's dudgeon, or her sister, married to the white man who now commands the castle, have any idea of the other's presence.
Alternating chapters introduce us to successive generations of Effia's and Esi's families. The stark contrast in the fortunes of their descendants — one family maintaining authority and power in Africa while the other is tossed and battered through slavery in America and the ongoing inequality that persists throughout — can make for difficult reading. At the same time, it's an effective way to convey that the African diaspora that came about via the slave trade is not a monolith. As Tolstoy reminded us in Anna Karenina, unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. None of the characters profiled in the book has been well-served by their encounter with the slave trade, regardless of which side they were on.
I was grateful for the genealogy chart at the beginning of the book. Each chapter was so searing in its emotional weight that I found it difficult to read more than one at a sitting, meaning that I was constantly having to remind myself of who the various characters were and where in the timeline they lived. There is nothing light or playful to break the impact of Effia's and Esi's stories, which is hard on the reader but perhaps not inappropriate. If they could live it, the least we can do is read about it, I would guess is the rationale.
I'm having a hard time thinking of who I would recommend this book to, despite the brutal beauty of Gyasi's prose, as in this description of Esi's state of mind during her time in the slave dungeon:
Hell was a place of remembering, each beautiful moment passed through the mind's eye until it fell to the ground like a rotten mango; perfectly useless, uselessly perfect.
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Description
"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath Effia in the Castle's women's dungeon, and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, where she will be sold into slavery. Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and--with outstanding economy and force--captures the troubled spirit of our own nation"--… (more)
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2018)
Audie Award (Finalist — 2017)
National Book Critics Circle Award (Winner — 2016)
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Finalist — 2017)
American Book Award (2017)
RUSA CODES Reading List (Shortlist — Historical Fiction — 2017)
Indies Choice Book Award (Winner — 2017)
Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Runner-Up — Fiction — 2017)
PEN/Hemingway Award (Winner — 2017)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Fiction — 2017)
The British Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — 2018)
Alabama Author Award (Fiction — 2017)
NCSLMA Battle of the Books (High School — 2018)
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize (Finalist — 2017)
Center for Fiction First Novel Prize (Shortlist — 2016)
Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2016)
Golden Poppy Book Award (Winner — 2016)
Dylan Thomas Prize (Longlist — 2017)
Books Are My Bag Readers Award (Shortlist — 2017)
5 Under 35 Award (2016)
Crook's Corner Book Prize (Longlist — 2017)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2016)
NPR: Books We Love (2016)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction & Poetry — 2016)
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (Debut Fiction — 2016)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2016)
Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Fiction — 2016)
The A.V. Club best books (2016)
Notable Books List (Fiction — 2017)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Fiction — 2016)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Teen — 2016)
Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List (Selection — 2017)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2016)
Language
Original publication date
2016-06-07