Belonging to the Air
Beginning in 1912, Honest Bennett, known as “Bird,” lives with her mother, Maddy, and blind grandmother, Odelia, in an all-Black town in Illinois, named Bennettsville for their freedmen ancestors. They are somewhat of a family of outcasts, however, since Bird was born out of wedlock, after her preacher father opted to leave Maddy and marry a more conventionally religious woman instead. Maddy has a sewing business, and they live a rather isolated life, but Bird becomes friends and later, lovers, with Bessie, the schoolteacher’s daughter. Knowing about the girls’ relationship, Odelia sends Bird away to stay with her Aunt Vera. As time passes, Bessie marries and Bird’s family life undergoes major changes. Spurred on by this, Bird wants to experience the wider world and migrates to Harlem in 1922. She sets up her own sewing business and is determined to shed her “country” upbringing and become a New Yorker.
African Americans who lived outside the Jim Crow South in that era still had many race-conflict issues to deal with. Bird is nearly caught up in the East St. Louis race riots in 1917 when visiting Vera. Later, when the whites of the neighboring town try to drive the Bennettsville residents out, Bird returns home to help. The experience of women living a clandestine lifestyle in the early 20th century is sensitively portrayed; Bird is lucky to find a lesbian mentor. While the pace is rather leisurely, the rich characterizations and compelling prose and dialogue kept me fascinated to learn whether Bird would reconcile with her past and find a way forward. A book to be savored.
