pagesofjulia

At just under 200 pages, Red at the Bone is a brief novel, but rich. I read most of it in a single day and finished it the following, but that doesn’t mean it’s not full of feeling. In fact, it has the kind of multigenerational sweep that we usually find in big, fat novels of 500+ pages, the kind that require lots of time and rest to take in. I appreciated the compressed depth.

Each chapter takes a close third-person perspective (sometimes first person) of a different person in the family, beginning with sixteen-year-old Melody, on the night of her presentation to society in a formal ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. The first word of this novel is ‘but,’ which you don’t see very often: “But that afternoon there was an orchestra playing.” They’re playing Prince’s “Darling Nikki,” but without the lyrics, naturally.

In other words, the novel begins in media res. Gradually we move through the perspectives of Melody’s mother Iris and father Aubrey, and Iris’s parents Sabe and Po-Boy; in their memories, especially Sabe’s, we learn of earlier generations. This family has come from all over – Aubrey from cities up and down the Gulf Coast, his mother from Santa Cruz and Berkeley; Sabe’s family stretches back to Tulsa and, crucially, the massacre of 1921. When Iris gets pregnant as a teenager, Aubrey is all in, but she wants to get out, and eventually goes away to college at Oberlin where her world widens while Aubrey and baby Melody make a family with Sabe and Po-Boy in the brownstone of the opening scene. The “fire and gold” remembered from Tulsa reaches forward in time to 9/11, and beyond.

This is a story about family and legacy, about what does and doesn’t carry from one generation to the next, about love and changing cultures and also about class. It has tragedy and comedy and love and heartbreak and love – again, that large and sweeping scope, but in a compact form, easy to take in practically in a single sitting. This is some very fine storytelling, especially because each chapter inhabits a different voice. And I appreciate all the markers of culture and time, like music, literature and fashion. In other words, Red at the Bone checks a lot of fine-fiction boxes in a really accessible package (no small feat). Woodson makes it look effortless. I enjoyed Another Brooklyn, but I think this one is better still. I’ll look for more from this author.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: family, misc fiction |