A family saga that begins at the dawn of time and grief narrative for our present moment
Deep Dives
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Transgenerational trauma
15 min read
The review emphasizes how each generation of the Laurent family attempts to heal from what has been done to them and what they have done to each other, with traumas being inherited across seven generations - this psychological concept is central to the novel's themes
The best-of lists are already upon us! How’s everyone feeling about it? I went live with my friend to resolve our own end-of-year reading anxieties and my friend wrote about the reader equivalent of touching grass in a recent newsletter.
Despite my mixed feelings about how bananas the bookish internet can get this time of year, I love reflecting on my books and creating lists! If you have any lists, superlatives, or types of books you’d like to see me shout out before the end of the year, please let me know!
This week in books.
This week I read…
The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne. This multigenerational epic begins with a tale as old as time: the Devil’s expulsion from heaven. But from here, Fayne takes his own inventive journey depicting Jesus distraught at the plight of Africans being sold into slavery and enlisting the help of his brother, the Devil, to end the horrific institution for good. If the Devil can right this evil, Jesus will argue in favor of the Devil’s return to heaven. Over the course of seven generations, we see the Devil at work in the lives of the Laurent family beginning with bestowing captured and enslaved Yetunde the gift of communing with her deceased sister. Each generation is haunted, possessed, and called in singular ways, and over the centuries the Laurents attempt to heal from what has been done to them and what they have done to each other.
I loved this book. I had been waiting to read it until I had a bit more brain space and longer spans of time for reading before starting this, and I’m glad I made that decision. This is a demanding book with a lot of characters to keep track of and plot lines to follow—plus momentum can slow when every chapter feels like starting again. But this really is one, single, epic story and the way anecdotes and lives get finished, reinvented, and misremembered from generation to generation is beautifully done and so satisfying for this reader. I particularly marveled at the way Fayne was able to capture not just distinct narrative voices, but distinct ways of being in the world. Each ...
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