HOMEGOING by YAA GYASI (2016)

What are the odds that two novels with almost exactly the same unusual narrative framework and pattern would be written by two authors and published in the same year? And yet, that happened this year, with the two books being Barkskins by Annie Proulx (reviewed here earlier this month) and Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. In both, the authors follow two family lines down through several generations, devoting alternating chapters to members from the two strands. At 300 pages, Homegoing is less than half the length of Barkskins and, in my opinion, is twice the better book.

Gyasi's novel begins in 18th century Ghana, following two half-sisters who are unaware of each other. Effia becomes the "wife" of an Englishman and lives in the Cape Coast Castle, while Esi is captured and imprisoned in a dungeon under the castle, awaiting transportation in a slave ship to America. One thread of the narration then follows Effia's descendants in Ghana, through the centuries of tribal warfare, the slave trade, and British colonization. Alternating with those accounts are the stories of Esi's descendants in America, through slavery, the precarious early days of freedom, and the Great Migration to the North. Both strands end in the present day, presenting a picture of generations of people shaped by events largely beyond their control.

While Proulx's characters rather tediously repeat the same patterns of behavior over and over again, before (often abruptly) dying, Gyasi's characters are much more interesting, as they react in different ways to changing situations that reflect the history of the times portrayed. As another plus, each chapter in Homegoing is structured as a short story, satisfyingly complete in itself. The ending brings the two family strands together in what some might consider an overly hopeful manner, as old wounds are healed. But then what else but hope can keep us from giving up in despair.

This is an extraordinary novel which I enthusiastically recommend.

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Homegoing has been included on many Best of 2016 lists and won the award for best first novel from the National Book Critics Circle.