Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

 We read An American Marriage by Tayari Jones for our book club last summer. I was really taken by Jones's writing and how honestly and bravely she delved into difficult topics. I also thought that her observations were just super smart.  Jones was also one of the authors who wrote in the Well-Read Black Girl anthology I just finished and I couldn't help but think it meant I should be reading more of Jones.  Sadly, Jones only has four novels, but I can see myself cranking through them one at a time in quick succession.

Silver Sparrow is the second Jones novel I have read and I am so mad at that the Goodreads score is less than 4. How is that possible?!  I don't usually rave about books (I mean, outside of Harry Potter, the Neopolitan quartet, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), but this book was so GOOD.  The basic premise (which you get in the first two pages, so it's not much of a spoiler) is that James Witherspoon marries two different women and has a daughter with each of them, daughters born within months of one another. 

This book raises so many questions. What is family? What role does colorism play in day-to-day lives of all sorts of people? In this story, who is right and who is wrong? Why? What role does the city of Atlanta play in this novel and why is it important that it is Atlanta? And that's all before you get started with issues of class, young love, and casual violence.

I will admit that the book takes a turn about halfway through and it loses some of its momentum. I definitely preferred the first half of the book to the second, but I think the second half is important in understanding the complexities of the human relationships that are at play in the novel.  There's a change in perspective that I was almost angry about, but at a certain point, I realized that this perspective was necessary to make me reexamine my own beliefs and, because of that, it was absolutely an essential part of the narrative. 

So if you haven't read any Tayari Jones, I implore you to do so! These books are thinkers in the best way possible.