These Ghosts are Family
A Novel
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These Ghosts are Family
Narrated by:
Karl O’Brian Williams
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Karl O’Brian Williams
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By:
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Maisy Card
About this listen
Shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A “rich, ambitious debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.
Stanford Solomon’s shocking, thirty-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley.
And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.
These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of a single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the houseboy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.
This “rich and layered story” (Kirkus Reviews) explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is a “beguiling…vividly drawn, and compelling” (BookPage, starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.
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Critic reviews
"Karl O'Brian Williams narrates the wildly entertaining saga of a Jamaican family in this gothic historical fiction. In a distinct Jamaican accent, Williams sets off the story of Abel Paisley, who faked his own death and assumed the identity of his friend, Stanford Solomon, who had died in an accident. Then Williams continues the circuitous story, narrating an obscure timeline going back to Jamaica's years of slavery two centuries earlier and going forward to Abel's stolen life in present-day New York City. . . . Williams's performance ramps up the story's suspense."
However, the tangled web of characters across time were difficult to keep track of. I struggled to remember who was who and how they were connected and when. The time hops left me dizzy in places. Separately, the stories had me in my feelings in so many ways. I just felt that I wasn't reading one story, or maybe even stories at all. It felt more like a set of loosely connected art pieces, fragmented thoughts, without conclusion. Ghosts, in more way than one, somehow visible, but not quite tangible.
The end part with the strange duppy story. . . it somehow embodied the nature of gossip and superstition but its placement left me completely unsatisfied. I felt like I read a bunch of different writing styles that were all great, and there is no doubt that the writer is immensely talented, but it just didn't leave me feeling fulfilled at the end. The Audible performance was absolutely brilliant with a fantastic reader, he really brought the characters to life for me and helped me keep a little track of what was going on.
I would consider rereading this in a paper format to see if I can get more from it with better idea of the characters (I suspect I would) and I would also read more by the same writer. I would recommend experiencing this because it's one of those books you have to take in for yourself. These ghosts will surely speak to each of us a little differently.
Great exploration but confusing in parts
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