The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois - Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - ★★★.½
AUTHOR: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
GENRE: Historical Saga
PUBLICATION DATE: August 24, 2021.
RATING: 3.5 stars.
In a Nutshell: An epic family saga spanning centuries. Filled with too many characters and too many themes. Excellent research. Fabulous in some character arcs but mostly repetitive in its agenda. I can see why this book is so highly rated, but it wasn’t for me, partly because I found the main character too whiny. This is somewhat an outlier review.
Plot Preview:
Ailey has long spent her summers in the small Southern town of Chicasetta in Georgia, where her mother’s ancestors have stayed since they were brought from Africa as slaves.
Ailey has trauma in her past, which makes her resistant to and aggressive towards the challenges of her present. But when the opportunity comes to learn more about her ancestors, especially the long line of women who came before her yet faced the same hardships, Ailey grabs it, and in the process, learns much about her family, her family history, and herself.
The story spans several centuries (approximately 1733 onwards till the recent past), and comes from the perspective of several characters. Ailey’s narration is the only one in first person and ties the myriad subplots together.
This is a praiseworthy debut, especially considering the research, the trivia, the sociological and historical inputs, the range of characters, and the complexity of the timeline and the family trees. At the same time, like most debut novels, it does suffer from what I have long called the ‘kitchen sink syndrome’. Keeping in mind that the book is more than 800 pages long, the kitchen sink is of a jumbo size this time around.
Black history in the US has been painful and even traumatising. Indigenous history in the US is possibly even worse. Either of these ethnic backgrounds would have enough historical trauma material to fill a full-length historical fiction novel many times over. This book chooses to include the horrifying past of BOTH these backgrounds into a unified, multi-pronged narrative. The reason for this is explained convincingly by the author in her parting note, but it doesn’t make the reading experience smoother or easier. Think of every possible trauma connected to the Indigenous Americans and the Blacks, and it is present in this book in bulk.
The research is impeccable, no doubt about that. Dates, places, people, events, policies,… the book is full of these, letting us know not just the characters’ history but also the people’s and the nation’s history. Commendable for a debut novelist to be so comprehensive and yet precise in her approach!
The author is a poet, and this lyrical trait is often visible in her writing. The descriptions, especially of the historical times, come through strong and resonant prose. The reason for having acclaimed sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois’s name in the title and his relevance to the racial equality movement is explained through the author’s note, some of the quotes in the book, and one character’s strong fascination with the sociologist.
While the story is a character-focussed one, it isn't character-driven and hence is more historical fiction than literary fiction. The *contemporary* timeline (which comes till the recent past) stays focussed on one character – Ailey – while the past shuffles across centuries. Thankfully, there is no random jumping across timelines. The story always moves to one particular point in the past, with one lengthy chapter explaining the events related to that specific character. The next past shift might be to some other timepoint and some other character. It is tedious to keep track of the tricky family relationships, so either take notes on the character connections or just move on and wing it with your fingers crossed.
Ailey is the unifying character of this novel as it is through her mixed Black and Native American heritage that we learn the stories of so many of her ancestors. However, Ailey is not easy to like. Her first person seems whiny as she almost always tends towards aggression. Anyone who dares suggest that Ailey change her opinion about any issue faces her wrath. While she herself doesn’t always follow moral standards, she is judgemental about others who break the ethical code.
I am mostly okay with unlikeable fictional characters as they bring a realistic complexity to the narrative. However, in sagas, unlikeable protagonists are usually shown as having some kind of epiphany or growth over the course of the narrative. We see them making mistakes, we see them struggling with their morality, and we see them finally lean towards the right path. Not Ailey. She never grows in maturity or sense, and she never stops whining about everyone purposely discriminating against her (whether they do so or not.) The writing forces us to accept her viewpoint, without once considering that what the other characters say in contradiction also might have some merit. Thus I couldn’t warm up to Ailey at all, and as the narration of her timeline is in her own first-person POV, I struggled to keep my patience with her annoying attitude.
The rest of the characters fare only a little better. Almost everyone has only one distinct role to play in the story: either villain or victim. There is no further depth or range to their attributes. The only notable exception was Uncle Root, whose personality comes out strongly, though his tendency to keep secrets wasn’t appealing.
The biggest hurdle in my liking this tome better was the repetition in the character detailing and the traumatic events. Every main white character is ignorant and smug and often evil. Almost every man, regardless of skin tone, is a jerk and an abuser (in various ways.) Almost every woman goes through similar traumatic experiences: sexual abuse, infidelity, rape, gaslighting, pregnancy, domestic abuse, emotional upheaval, and a whole lot more. After a point, I couldn’t even bring myself to react to the events because the freshness was lost. It just became yet another infidelity, yet another rape, yet another child molestation. No matter whose story from which century, everything sounded the same after a point. I can only derive the very gloomy conclusion that women’s fate has stayed the same since 1773.
That said, I appreciate that the book doesn’t attack only the whites. With Ailey’s complex family tree having white, Black and indigenous ancestors, the plot gets ample opportunity to demonstrate internal discrimination (especially the obsession with lighter skin colour), self-proclaimed racial superiority, and prejudice against other minorities.
All in all, I understand how this book would strongly resonate with many readers. Black and indigenous readers would find much address to their intergenerational trauma, while white readers might understand the other perspective and the mistakes made by some of their ancestors. I am a brown reader disconnected from these events in every way except in terms of empathy towards fellow humans. So I must make it clear that my evaluation is not based on the real-life emotions of the marginalised, nor am I questioning the validity or accuracy of the events. My feedback is strictly limited to the book, which I found repetitive, longwinded, somewhat whiny, and overly generalised.
🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at a massive 29+ hours, is narrated by three narrators: one voicing Ailey, another female narrator voicing all the women of the past, and one male narrator voicing the past men. If you are wary of reading 800+ pages and not afraid of listening to 29+ hours (where you can go faster thanks to tempo changes), the audiobook can be a great way of experiencing this epic saga. Good luck keeping the characters together though. After a point, I just gave up on keeping track of who was who, especially as all of them behaved the same. Goes without saying that the audio version isn't for audio newbies.
Overall, I loved some parts of the book but was also bored by many sections. Of my seven GR friends who have read the book, every single one has rated this 4-5 stars. The GR rating is also an exceptional 4.51 stars. So it is very clear that I am an outlier in my feelings. But misery lit never is to my liking.
I’d still recommend this to those readers who like historical fiction covering sensitive and emotional topics from the past and are okay with self-righteous main characters. This is not at all an easy read and has many R-rated triggering scenes, so don’t pick it up unless you are in a strong headspace.
For those who intend to read this, I found this useful character list provided by Harper Collins Publishers for the benefit of audiobook listeners. Bookmark this if it is not present in your print/digital copy because you will surely need it.
This was a library read.
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