J. Doyle

A Gullah Story

Revisado: 09-12-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

This book is very well done. (And, as audio book, it tells the story in a wonderful voice.) It is the story of the Walpole family, who are trying to live apart from society. The Walpoles choose to live in the Gullah country in South Carolina (more specifically, the coastal islands near Charleston). In the first few chapters of the book, the two Walpole brothers bring along their younger sister while they commit a (petty) armed robbery. In the course of the chaos, the younger sister dies – or at least seems to -- but that is just where the story begins. That evening of the girl’s death, two winged men -- angels, essentially -- appear and carry her away. In Gullah culture, winged men play an important role, born from the Gullah people’s history. For the balance of the book, the Walpoles try to grieve and try to understand what has happened. But this is all setup: there is so much more, and I will avoid spoiling Hammes’s plot.

The pacing and voice are first-rate. Hammes’s approach -- a Southern version of magical realism -- is beautiful. And plainly Hammes loves this corner of the world; he gives his characters dreams and frustrations and so much warmth.

I enjoyed listening to this book, but it is always slightly unsettling. So many questions. What do we believe? What do people do for hope at the most awful parts of life? What role do outsiders play in a community? Who gets to know about, and to talk about, a community’s secrets and its stories? (The story is scrubbed of most mentions of race -- intentionally so, it seems -- and it largely avoids confronting how history has shaped the Gullah world. Those ideas are mostly left for the listener to unpack.)

This book made me want to find more books about this part of the South.  I may look for more authors who can tell the story of the place, especially those with a different point of view. But Hammes’s book made me think, and it made me want more. I highly recommend it.

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