If I close a book and have a feeling of satisfaction, I know it was a good reading experience. And if I am lucky most books come with that contented sigh at the end. Every so often, however, I close a book, am 'wowed' and think, 'now this is why I love to read'. That is the experience I had with Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing. There was that contented sigh, but this is a story (rather--stories) that is going to stay with me and that happy sigh will linger. Gyasi was named one of the five Under 35 honorees by the National Book Foundation in 2016 ("whose work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape"), and her debut novel also won a National Book Critics Circle Award as well as the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction. All richly deserved and I only wish the book had also been included on the Baileys Women's Prize list.
Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana but was raised in Alabama. Her novel is mainly set in both places. It is quite an odyssey from start to finish and is essentially made up of interlinked stories. I am hesitant to mention this as I know short stories tend to put people off, but trust me this flows like a novel and you will enjoy the storytelling journey even as you shudder at some of the events that take place, as this is a story of two half sisters born in 18th century Ghana but whose life trajectories cross and will then take them in very different directions.
The Cape Coast Castle in Ghana will figure throughout the novel but especially in both the beginning and last story and is the place the two girls become separated unbeknownst to each other. Effia will live in the castle as the mistress/wife of the British governor and it is from the dungeons below the castle that Esi begins her journey into slavery. She passes through a door through which no one returns--the door that leads to a slave ship. Each consecutive chapter relates the stories of their descendants and their lives in Ghana and America.
This is an ambitious story chronicling some three hundred years of the lives of these families set against the backdrop of a changing world. It is not so much major world events that she writes about but the intimate and social. Gyasi shows what life was and is like for people of color. She shows the human face of our Colonial heritage and the racist laws and attitudes that are sadly still with us even now. This is a story that is hard to turn away from even when it feels like you just can't take anymore of the painful (both physically and psychologically) way that the characters are treated.
To be honest I tend to avoid stories where race and racial injustices feature prominently as it is so difficult to think this is how people have been treated for centuries, but it's important too not to turn a blind eye away from these things. Reading is a major way we learn empathy for others, others who live lives often very differently than our own. Maybe if more of us read more books like this there would be more compassion and equality. We never seem to learn these lessons, however, but it's writers like Yaa Gyasi that show us what the world is like--in all its beauty and its ugliness. And despite the often heavy and difficult subject matter this is ultimately a very hopeful book.
It would be too much to try and tell you about all the stories. I found them all very good, some more difficult going than others, some quite surprising. She took the characters in directions I was not really expecting. It is an ambitious book, but she pulls it off impressively. I will happily press this book into your hands, I liked it so much (and it is now out in paperback, too). She is definitely one of my great finds this year when it comes to new-to-me authors and I expect this will very likely be one of my top reads of the year later on. I'm very curious to see where she goes from here in her next book.
Such an excellent read that twines the stories together with a beautiful ending (no spoilers given away, but just so you know). Yes, definitely a contented and lingering sigh on finishing Homegoing.