Homegoing

This is the best novel I've read this year. I love this book.

Every year, the Seattle Public library chooses a book that they suggest the city read. The idea is that the city can participate in a conversation about the book as people do within book clubs. They buy hundreds of copies and make sure there are many available at each branch.

The author, Yaa Gyasi, is a young woman (29) born in Ghana who immigrated here with her family when she was very young. Her father is a professor. Their fanily ultimately settled in Mobile, Alabama. Gyasi attended Stanford, then the Iowa Writer's workshop.

The New Yorker wrote a lovely review:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/yaa-gyasis-homegoing

The book is an interesting story of Africans who stayed in Africa and those who were brought to the US. It feels like an explanation of how we got here since slavery shaped this country and our politics. It is also a story about the disintegration of community in a culture that values the individual over the family and how that causes suffering especially to vulnerable populations but really, to everyone.

Oddly, it is not a depressing book to read.