The book’s prose can feel lukewarm, and the story as a whole suffers at times from a surface treatment of complicated emotions.

Each views her world with a quiet, honest eye.

Each envies those they call “Silver”-the shiny, beautiful, wanted people. It’s like its narrators, sisters Dana and Chaurisse, each of whom sees herself as ordinary, not due much notice. Silver Sparrow rarely evokes wonder or awe. Do not look here for a novel whose beauty will overwhelm you. If this book spoke aloud it would speak with a quiet, unsteady voice, one on the edge of tears. It gives a compelling glimpse into all that has changed in Atlanta and in the world, and all that Atlanta’s changes represent for real people. Taken as such, Silver Sparrow, Jones’s third novel, often offers interesting revelations about Atlanta, where the novel emerges and where its author was raised. They rise from the author’s distinct positioning among Atlanta’s black middle class-a group that has been present and vocal since the founding of the Atlanta University Center’s colleges during Reconstruction, but never so large or so powerful as in the past 40 years. Jones’ first two novels- Leaving Atlanta, a book that took up where her predecessor Toni Cade Bambara left off in a literary treatment of the Atlanta Child Murders in a posthumous novel, and The Untelling, also set in Atlanta-couldn’t have been written in any time but our own. Jones’ perspective aligns with that of many who see the African-American experience as a collective story we weave, a representation of the individual and collective wills that have continued to boldly assert humanity in the face of multi-generational traumas. Any one story is not complete,” she told me in an interview. All of our voices together make a tapestry. “We’re all writing so many different stories. Progress doesn’t come without its own complications.Īt one point during her talk, Perkins-Valdez told the audience, “I always encourage to write, write, write, because I don’t want to be the only one telling the story.“ The juxtaposition of faces of color against a living monument to the war fought over the issue of our ancestors’ bondage surely serves as a sign of the times. We came to hear scholar-turned-novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez impart her vital historical perspective on American life in the 245 years during which the institution of Southern slavery provided the country’s economic fuel, roughly from 1619 to 1864. On Friday, June 8, 2011, an all-black crowd gathered at Atlanta’s Cyclorama, a Civil War museum devoted to the memory of the Battle of Atlanta.

Silver sparrow book review