The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is such tender, intimate and unique book about the generations of one American family, from the colonial slave trade, the Civil War to the 21st century.

I am a huge fan of Homegoing, so seeing in the description that it has similar force and luminescence as the novel by Yaa Gyasi, it made me send a request at NetGalley without reading the synopsis.

It is impossible to imagine that this is author's fictional debut, because it is such solid read, which I could not put down, because you get so close to the characters, they are like your close friends or members of family.

Regardless that the book is more than 700/800 pages, you fly through it as if it is only 300/400 pages long.

The story itself fills your heart with sadness, rege and heartbreak for the characters, but at the same time you feel joy when they find themselves (how Ailey finds her passion in learning about her family's past).

In addition, it should be mentioned that I am definitely interested in reading W.E.B. Du Bois' books. I was fascinated by the epigraphs added to the chapters of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers' book.

Overall, it is definitely a 5 star from me. I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a complex story that starts hundreds years ago until 2000s, modern life and it shows how the events from the past that happened way before we were born may have an impact on the present life. It's a book about race, feminism, decisions, family life, slavery. Loved it and I couldn't recommend it enough.

I'm daunted by the prospect of writing this review because I'm not sure I have the words to give it what it deserves. This is hands-down one of the most beautiful, haunting, engrossing and important books I have ever read.

Veronica chambers wrote in the New York Times that she would 'avoid the cliché of calling it a great American novel' but I don't have as much willpower as her - Wikipedia describes them as 'dealing in some way with the question of America's national character' and this fulfils that requirement in abundance.

The book shares the stories of multiple generations of an African-American family, taking all of the branches into consideration. Their lives and relationships are drawn into such a rich tapestry that is epic and sprawling whilst also feeling incredibly personal. The main character, Ailey Pearl Garfield is an absolute hero for all times and she is written with such love and depth that you can't help but fall for her. I viscerally felt all her ups and downs and laughed and cried right alongside her. There is a lot of history throughout the book and it is interwoven in a way that makes it is completely accessible, focusing on the human (and particularly the female) aspect. It's the best kind of learning that our favourite teachers were so good at - imparting knowledge in a way that we don't even realise we are learning, we're just wrapped up in the subject.

People may feel that at 816 pages long, this must be a bloated tome but they couldn't be more wrong in my opinion - every word is considered and vital. Don't be put off by the length, be happy that you get to spend so much time with these characters.

This is an awful book…. I don’t care what Oprah or anyone else says. This book is way too long. The tedious details aren’t needed such as what someone wears to a party, or the heart attack inducing food… no thanks. #netgalley

NO SPOILERS

This book needs to be read by everyone but I would not recommend it to anyone.

The plot travels back and forth in time to tell the story of a present day African American family; it traces their roots back to slavery and beyond. It is the perfect illustration of the far reaching consequences of a shameful time in world history buy my word, it drags on and is just too crammed. The plot is superb; the story is not. 800+ pages which could easily be abridged to half that and still keep its message.

Some of the writing is beautiful, with a poetic rhythm but some of it is too “lite” for me. I like an author to change style and tone for different narrators but this is just a mess.

As a 60 year old woman of mixed heritage I think this is an important book but this sums it up for me:

“Here, read this. Understand what it’s like and why; sorry about the chick lit parts though.”

Perhaps I’ve missed something. Perhaps the only way to get people to read this is to turn it into a beach read with added history but such an important message needs to be more appealing to more people.

Thank you to NetGalley and 4th Estate for the Advanced Review Copy of the book, which I have voluntarily reviewed.

This book is one to return to over and over again, reading sections at a time to fully appreciate the depth of the writing.. Although highly nuanced and intelligently researched, I found the sheer length of it daunting and, at times, 'lost' some of the characters for a while. As a piece of inter-racial history, however, it is worth sticking with it.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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Beautiful, powerful story that looks at heritage, history and progress. Really vivid and gorgeous.
Ailey is an amazing character who will stay with me for a very long time.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

I was so sure I would love this novel but apparently I'm in a minority because this was not my cup of tea. I didn't like the writing style and I felt disconnected from the characters.

This book is the story of at least two generations of people who are black, white and mixed race. Embedded in a family history, it is an important contribution to the recording and understanding of racial discrimination and abuse. It is carefully written and well researched. It is very long and not a gripping tale. Sometimes it can be hard to work out who are the characters in each chapter. This is an important record rather than an absorbing story.

This book has already been nominated for multiple prizes. Hailed as "The Great American Novel" and an instant classic. It is a big brick of a book, coming in at over 800 pages and whilst in lots of ways I was interested in and liked the tale, I will go against the majority opinion which lauded and praised the book superlatively and say that I wish the editor had wielded their pen more. I felt there was too much relating of minutiae such as overlong details about meals and food and superfluous characters introduced. For me, this diluted the world building and slowed the story making it feel sluggish and yet overblown. In the narrative "The Colour Purple" is referenced and I feel the story could have been improved by taking lessons from Alice Walker's writing with her spare more sparse style that landed gut punches that lived on in my memory.

The narrative revolves around Ailey Pearl Garfield growing up in the 1970's in a city in the North of North America but who spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that's made all the more difficult by her family urging her to succeed. In order to try to come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past, related in "Song" sections of the book. These uncover the tales of generations of her ancestors – Indigenous, Black, and white – in the deep South. Tales of wealth, poverty, oppression, rape , abuse. hardship and triumph. Issues of Class and colourism are a constant source of tension in the book. Ailey has relatives who easily pass for "white" and are are among the Black elite contrasting with her poorer Southern relatives. It is interesting to explore how all those who came before us have contributed to who we are today.

I enjoyed this immensely, especially the family history and the intertwining stories that shaped the present generation of Ailey's family. I liked the details about her present situation, but found some of the tangents and back-story a little long. But it really picked up when Ailey actually started to research her own family. So much to think about.

Really enjoyable. Reminded me of something I read a while ago but i couldnt put my finger on what it was. Really good characterisation and interesting storyline. Really looking forward to more from this author

This is a huge, gripping family saga, written from the point of view of Alley, a Black woman researching the area her family has lived for generations for her university thesis in the late 90s. However, the story weaves through history from the original indigenous population, to the various waves of settlers through American history. The relationships between men and women, different races and classes are fascinating, and there is a common theme of sexual and other abuse running through each generation. The whole book is about bringing these untold stories and links between people to light. Not always an easy read, and very long, it was satisfying to discover the links and echoes between each character, really putting you in the position of a historical researcher uncovering these hidden histories. Long, but the changes of perspective kept my interest throughout and I really enjoyed it.

This is an epic saga. I liked the narrative more then the songs that separates the parts of the book. A large tomb of a book that covers a lot of ground.

Upon finishing this book, I got the same feeling when I’ve got after reading Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Both books have happy endings, albeit this book is more ambitious in its uptake. Starting from the timeline itself, which stretches from the antebellum era to the twenty-first century. Mrs Jeffers starts the story from an era when the U.S. state of Georgia was called The-Place-in-the-Middle-of-the-Tall-Trees, which was inhabited by the people of Seminoles, that had once been part of the Creek people, who gave sanctuaries to the Negroes and mated with them too. There is a lot of emphasis on the need to take into account not only the history of the Black people but the Native Americans and Afro-Indigenous people as well as part of the whole story.

The book is divided into two alternating timelines. Mrs Jeffers employs the term “Song” for chapters that take place in the antebellum era until the years following the American Civil War, while an alternative narrative follows the life of Ailey Pearl Garfield who was born in the late sixties, hailing from a long line of a family descended from former slaves in the fictional city of Chicasetta in Georgia, U.S. Ailey was introduced as a three-year-old, daughter of Mrs Maybelle Lee Garfield and Mr Geoffrey Louis Garfield. She was born the youngest daughter of the family with the eldest sister called Lydia and Carol Rose “Coco”, the middle sister. The family is described to live in the “City” where Ailey’s father family resides in the northern part of the country, far from Chicasetta where her mother’s people lived in the South.

At first, the divides between “Song” and Ailey’s story might seem confusing as the timeline stretches too far. While the people described in the “Song” faced the hardships and abuses in the days of institutionalised slavery, Ailey grows up with the problems of her time as she navigates her family expectations, colourism, romantic mishaps, and the trauma of sexual abuses in her childhood. The main focus of the story is Ailey, but there are frequent moments when we are brought to see further the perspectives of other characters as well, such as Ailey’s sister Lydia experience of being molested by her dead grandfather that affects her into adulthood, and also Mrs Maybelle Lee’s regret to give up her further studies after being pregnant with Lydia. Mrs Jeffers doesn’t leave small details missing in explaining her characters, sometimes even to bring us into another viewpoint to revisit a different perspective for characters who were initially being portrayed as bad.

Further, my initial impression was the two timelines are not directly related and they were only there to give parables of the hardships that Black people experienced in Georgia, but the tone of the story begins to change as Mrs Jeffers develop the characters of Ailey further when she embarks on her graduate studies in history. There is a family tree being presented at the start of the book, and I’ll admit that I didn’t pay any attention to it as there are too many characters to memorise in this story. Ailey is partly inspired by her great-uncle, Mr Root, and her former professor at Routledge College, Dr Oludara, when she embarks on her research in history, upon which she focuses her master’s thesis and PhD dissertation on the history of her family’s ancestral home in Chicasetta that finally reveals new findings on her own family history.

The length of this book–816 pages–is something to be patient with. The story starts really slow and there are frequent upturns, with information that seems mundane at the beginning. However, after the first half of the saga, the story begins to make sense and it’s interesting to see Ailey’s character development as we could witness how she changes from a young child with a difficult position to fulfil her family expectations into an independent woman who becomes the family historian. She used to only listen to the chronicles of Uncle Root or when her great-uncle debates with her ex-boyfriend, David James, about whether W.E.B. Du Bois or Booker T. Washington holds more importance in advancing the rights of the Black people. But then, Ailey finds her turning point with the death of her sister and slowly we could witness her overcoming the traumas of her childhood, something which probably didn’t start with herself, but something that has been institutionalised in the society she lives in.

And to comment on the title, W.E.B. Du Bois is pretty much present in the story, albeit not as a character that becomes part of the story. His ideas are present, sometimes in the debates between Uncle Root and David James, and other times through his quotes in between the chapters. At times, the ideas that Mrs Jeffers borrows from the great scholar in this book make it sound a bit academic and there are occasions when the characters in the book “explains”, for example in scenes depicting classroom debates, which makes the ideas sound to be quoted verbatim. But this is one of the nicest books I’ve read this year. A nice book to close 2021!

Thanks to Harper and NetGalley for providing the electronic advance review copy.

Loved this! It's beautifully written, covering multiple viewpoints and historical periods. But be prepared to set aside a huge amount of time to read it. It's engaging but very very long.

A beautifully written book spanning many years and characters. It was hard to follow at times, I would have benefited from a printed family tree next to me, but the characters and their inherited traits came through.

Thanks for letting me review this book

Absolutely breathtaking! I couldn't put this book down. The construction is flawless, the characters larger than life, the extent of research nothing less than utterly impressive. A novel that will bring you to tears, that will make you angry, but also one that will make you laugh at times and that contains passages full of love. And what better than love to oppose to all the horrors at the heart of American history? One of the best books I have read this year.

This book seems deceptively simple in the beginning but it evolves into a complex line of history of a family. The writing is very good, the characters are compelling, and the stories intriguing. I wasn't as blown away by the book as many seem to be, but it's worth reading. It is a VERY long book and requires a commitment from the reader but it's an interesting read.

Ambitious and epic family saga, convoluted at 800+ pages - Ailey, a young Black Feminist, researches her family history and the horrors of slavery. A tough read but it will certainly stay with me for a long time!