INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021 AN OPRAH BOOK
CLUB SELECTION WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE
PEN HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION • A
FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL
PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE • A NOMINEE FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD A
New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • A Time Must-Read Book of the Year • A Washington
Post 10 Best Books of the Year • A Oprah Daily Top 20 Books of the Year • A People 10 Best
Books of the Year • A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year • A BookPage Best Fiction Book of the
Year • A Booklist 10 Best First Novels of the Year • A Kirkus 100 Best Novels of the Year • An
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 10 Best Southern Books of the Year • A Parade Pick • A Chicago
Public Library Top 10 Best Books of the Year • A KCRW Top 10 Books of the Year An Instant
Washington Post USA Today and Indie Bestseller Epic.... I was just enraptured by the lineage
and the story of this modern African-American family.... A combination of historical and modern
story?I've never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me. ?Oprah Winfrey Oprah Book
Club Pick An Indie Next Pick • A New York Times Book Everyone Will Be Talking About • A People
5 Best Books of the Summer • A Good Morning America 15 Summer Book Club Picks • An Essence Best
Book of the Summer • A Washington Post 10 Books of the Month • A CNN Best Book of the Month • A
Time 11 Best Books of the Month • A Ms. Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Goodreads Most
Anticipated Book of the Year • A BookPage Writer to Watch • A USA Today Book Not to Miss • A
Chicago Tribune Summer Must-Read • An Observer Best Summer Book • A Millions Most Anticipated
Book • A Ms. Book of the Month • A Well-Read Black Girl Book Club Pick • A BiblioLifestyle Most
Anticipated Literary Book of the Summer • A Deep South Best Book of the Summer • Winner of an
AudioFile Earphones Award The 2020 NAACP Image Award-winning poet makes her fiction debut with
this National Book Award-longlisted magisterial epic?an intimate yet sweeping novel with all
the luminescence and force of Homegoing Sing Unburied Sing and The Water Dancer?that
chronicles the journey of one American family from the centuries of the colonial slave trade
through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era. The great scholar W. E. B. Du Bois once
wrote about the Problem of race in America and what he called ?Double Consciousness ? a
sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood Ailey
Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois's words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable
Black Americans?the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl the
descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers?Ailey carries Du Bois's Problem on her
shoulders. Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia
town of Chicasetta where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from
Africa in bondage. From an early age Ailey fights a battle for belonging that's made all the
more difficult by a hovering trauma as well as the whispers of women?her mother Belle her
sister Lydia and a maternal line reaching back two centuries?that urge Ailey to succeed in
their stead. To come to terms with her own identity Ailey embarks on a journey through her
family's past uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors?Indigenous Black and
white?in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage a legacy of
oppression and resistance bondage and independence cruelty and resilience that is the
story?and the song?of America itself.
