Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

In the interest of full disclosure, I loved Black Cake, the author's first book, so much that it would be hard to compete with that in this, her second book. That said, this has a lot of the appealing story telling that the first book did, and well as an emphasis on traditions of the past and their link to the present, but for me the story was not as well constructed, and the ending was both abrupt and unsatisfying. Would I read her next book? Absolutely, and I do recommend this one as well. The book begins in 2000 as we witness the tragic home invasion of the Freeman house in Massachusetts where not only their cherished family heirloom (a jar thrown by an enslaved potter in the 1800s) is broken but ten-year-old Ebony’s brother Baz is shot and killed at the young age of fifteen. There is a lot of unwanted publicity around it and when, 20 years later, Ebbie is stood up at the altar by Henry it all resurfaces and she ducks out of the country to get away from it all. The past follows her though--the profound loss of her brother, the significance of the pottery jar that has been in her family since the mid-nineteenth century and Henry, who turns up at her rented cottage in France. The weaving of the story together is one that I like, with the significance of generational trauma playing a role in the present being something I enjoy in a book, and that I see in my professional life. Check this one out, and if you haven't read Black Cake, read this first.