Ri’s Read: Love, Loss, & Legacy in The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

January’s read will be a tough act to follow, y’all.

I picked this book up for myself while out Christmas shopping at a bookstore — it was on a table of recently published novels and the size, to be honest, is what first caught my attention. At over 800 pages, I was definitely intimidated… I don’t think I’ve read a book that thick since Harry Potter in elementary school.

But oh, what a fated decision it was. Once I picked it up — I promise — I couldn’t put it down. The writing alone was sufficient to win me over; Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is also a poet, and it shows. I finished in two & a half weeks, full of awe, heartache, joy, hurt… a whirlwind of emotions, honestly. The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois is both a Black girl’s coming of age story and an intricate family saga. A tale of love and loss and life and legacy. If you liked Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, you’ll love this.

The Love Songs

We trace the lineage of Ailey Pearl Garfield, who lives in the North but blooms in Chicasetta, Georgia, where her family has lived on the same plot of land since slavery was legal. We learn about the white men who stole the land from the Creek Indians to whom it originally belonged, and all the horrors that followed.

Trigger warning: sexual and physical violence, drug abuse, and racism are recurrent themes throughout the book. It’s authentic, it’s raw, it’s bold in places and tender in others. If you weren’t already acutely aware of what it’s like being Black in a world that white people think belongs to them, HA, grab your wine and buckle in, ’cause you’re in for a rouse. Stories like this make it easy to understand the way trauma trickles down through the generations; we are the way we are, and it’s not always pretty or neat or lovely, and look, this is why. It’ll haunt you, in the best way possible.

One ever feels his twoness, — An American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warning ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

Look, if you don’t plan on reading any other book this year… do yourself a favor and make an exception for this one. Looking for more suggestions? I got you covered here.

I’d love to hear what you’re currently reading. Talk to me in the comments!