Long Gone, Come Home
Mt. Sterling, Kentucky in the 1930s is a quiet place, one that teenaged Birdie Jennings longs to escape. She dreams of big cities, of travel, of music and dancing, of opening her own restaurant. When she meets Jimmy Walker, an idealistic man who admires Marcus Garvey and quotes Langston Hughes, she feels that such a life is possible, and they quickly marry. Jimmy is well-traveled and well-read, brimming with enthusiasm about a future free from the oppression known by his ancestors. But he’s full of more promises than plans. Without steady work, Jimmy disappears for weeks at a time, chasing jobs he won’t discuss. Just a few years after they marry, he stops coming home, leaving Birdie to cope with two toddlers and few employment opportunities for a young Black woman. Married and abandoned before she’s twenty, Birdie must, for the first time, make her own decisions, for better or for worse.
Monica Chenault-Kilgore writes an effective and emotional novel, populated with big characters and vibrant settings. Birdie is a character to hope with and grieve with. Even as readers might worry over the choices she makes, it is a worry brought upon by compassion as they watch Birdie grow and learn, despite having few options as a Black woman in the 1930s and 1940s. The supporting characters are just as complex, looking for happiness and success in an America that does not offer them easy choices. From the closeness of small-town Kentucky to the jazz of Chicago, from sharecropping and factory work to the dangerous glamour of bootlegging, Chenault-Kilgore gives us a sweep of Black experiences in a thoughtful and vivid narrative.
