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These Ghosts Are Family
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Karl O’Brian Williams
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
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These Ghosts Are Family
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Summary
PEN/Hemingway Award For Debut Novel Finalist
Shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A “rich, ambitious debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.
Stanford Solomon’s shocking, 30-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley.
And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.
These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of a single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the houseboy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.
This “rich and layered story” (Kirkus Reviews) explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is a “beguiling...vividly drawn, and compelling” (BookPage, starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.
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What listeners say about These Ghosts Are Family
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Steph
- 27-05-21
Great exploration but confusing in parts
I loved how this story started and was gripped straight away. There were some absolutely incredible themes explored that helped show a lot of why certain Jamaican outlooks are the way they are today, starting in the present day and gradually weaving the story back through generations, right to around the time the ancestors began to fight back against slavery. From addressing the myth of the 'angry black woman', to shadism, to faith and superstition, abuse of different types, and splintered families, difficult relationships, and responsibility-shy males...No stone was left unturned! No voice left unheard. Not even the duppy (but I'll come back to that).
However, the tangled web of characters across time were difficult to keep track of. I struggled to remember who was who and how they were connected and when. The time hops left me dizzy in places. Separately, the stories had me in my feelings in so many ways. I just felt that I wasn't reading one story, or maybe even stories at all. It felt more like a set of loosely connected art pieces, fragmented thoughts, without conclusion. Ghosts, in more way than one, somehow visible, but not quite tangible.
The end part with the strange duppy story. . . it somehow embodied the nature of gossip and superstition but its placement left me completely unsatisfied. I felt like I read a bunch of different writing styles that were all great, and there is no doubt that the writer is immensely talented, but it just didn't leave me feeling fulfilled at the end. The Audible performance was absolutely brilliant with a fantastic reader, he really brought the characters to life for me and helped me keep a little track of what was going on.
I would consider rereading this in a paper format to see if I can get more from it with better idea of the characters (I suspect I would) and I would also read more by the same writer. I would recommend experiencing this because it's one of those books you have to take in for yourself. These ghosts will surely speak to each of us a little differently.
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