The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
In 1973 a baby girl is born to Belle and Geoff Garfield. Ailey Pearl Garfield is a lover of books, a child whose lineage stretches back to Africa, the Creek Indians, and settlers who arrived with Oglethorpe to colonize what we now know as the state of Georgia. This magical novel teases out strands of many histories: Ailey’s own journey to maturity, the lives of her immediate family, and those of her ancestors on land the white man stole from the indigenous people and then named Chickasaw.
We watch Ailey grow, and learn the stories of her sisters, her father, her mother. They spend winters in the city, where Geoff works as a doctor and Belle teaches school. Summers are spent in the South with her grandmother, Miss Rose, and beloved Uncle Root. Ailey’s tale intertwines with those of her ancestors: Nila, Micco, Aggie, Nick, the twins Rabbit and Eliza, and so many other forefathers and mothers, and in the telling weaves a rich and deeply textured tapestry of story.
I devoured this amazing novel, but now yearn to go back again, slowly re-read and savor the book, as rich and sweet as the golden juice and flesh of the peaches that grow on Miss Rose’s farm. The struggles, loves, and sufferings of Ailey’s people open an intimate window on painful chapters in American history which some readers may not be familiar with. Other readers will rejoice, hearing a story that resonates with their own past told so masterfully. Jeffers’s prose flows like a powerful river, drawing the reader into the current of Ailey’s life and the lives of her ancestors. I didn’t want the journey to stop. Highly recommended.
