Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Homegoing
Yua Gyasi
Review by Priscilla Comen
Homegoing
Yua Gyasi
Review by Priscilla Comen
Homegoing, by Yua Gyasi, is the saga of generations of Africans, from ancient slavery to the present time. She wrote this as a sophomore at Stanford University. She returned to Ghana to trace her roots after living in Alabama.
The first main character in the book is Effia, born in Fanteland and raised by her father and a step-mother, Maame, who beat her. Effia marries a white man named James and moves to the Castle where she is treated like a queen—almost. She doesn’t know about the dungeon below her apartments where black women are held, bodies on top of bodies. Her half sister, Esi, lives in the dungeon for some time, then is sent to the United States on a slave ship. Maame was a slave who escaped by setting a fire on the night of Effia’s birth.
James Collins is the white man who falls in love with Effia. They marry and have a child, though he has a wife and children back in England. He is kind and gentle with Effia but gets angry and cold when Effia brings up the slaves held in the Castle’s dungeon. Author Gyasi introduces us to each of many men and women who suffer slavery and torture at the hands of the British and Americans. A character list at the front of the book helps us identify the family members. She moves us to Alabama when they emigrate to the U.S. Some of them live in Baltimore and make their living working on boats. Some work in the coal mines, like H who is so strong they call him "two shovels," as he shovels for a buddy too weak to do his job.
The story ends with Marjorie who was raised in Alabama and is close to her grandmother, Ma Akua. She visits her in Ghana during the summers. Marcus is a student at Stanford graduate school. He studies his family’s lineage, and goes to Ghana with Marjorie. They visit the Castle, which many African-American tourists do.
“People don’t look underneath to all the realities,” says author Gyasi. But this author looked underneath, and we see it for all its pain. We need to know it, as it is our history too.
The author asks, “How do people without history know their history?” This history, terrible though it is, is important to know.
Find it in the fiction room of your Mendocino Community Library.
The first main character in the book is Effia, born in Fanteland and raised by her father and a step-mother, Maame, who beat her. Effia marries a white man named James and moves to the Castle where she is treated like a queen—almost. She doesn’t know about the dungeon below her apartments where black women are held, bodies on top of bodies. Her half sister, Esi, lives in the dungeon for some time, then is sent to the United States on a slave ship. Maame was a slave who escaped by setting a fire on the night of Effia’s birth.
James Collins is the white man who falls in love with Effia. They marry and have a child, though he has a wife and children back in England. He is kind and gentle with Effia but gets angry and cold when Effia brings up the slaves held in the Castle’s dungeon. Author Gyasi introduces us to each of many men and women who suffer slavery and torture at the hands of the British and Americans. A character list at the front of the book helps us identify the family members. She moves us to Alabama when they emigrate to the U.S. Some of them live in Baltimore and make their living working on boats. Some work in the coal mines, like H who is so strong they call him "two shovels," as he shovels for a buddy too weak to do his job.
The story ends with Marjorie who was raised in Alabama and is close to her grandmother, Ma Akua. She visits her in Ghana during the summers. Marcus is a student at Stanford graduate school. He studies his family’s lineage, and goes to Ghana with Marjorie. They visit the Castle, which many African-American tourists do.
“People don’t look underneath to all the realities,” says author Gyasi. But this author looked underneath, and we see it for all its pain. We need to know it, as it is our history too.
The author asks, “How do people without history know their history?” This history, terrible though it is, is important to know.
Find it in the fiction room of your Mendocino Community Library.