Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Silver Sparrow is a powerful and unforgettable book, full of soul and intelligence and is Tayari Jones's finest work which is saying something given the beauty of her earlier books. This is a novel where you know, from the first page, what the major tensions of the narrative are. You also get a sense of how the story will end. This is not to suggest that this novel is without its surprises or complexities; you will find both in this book. Nonetheless, Silver Sparrow is a book where how the writer leads the reader to an inevitable ending matters most. Normally, this approach of revealing so much of what is at stake in the early going might seem like a prescription for failure but such is not the case in what is a remarkable novel. Silver Sparrow is thoroughly engaging and although there is so much intense emotion driving the story forward, that emotion is expertly controlled, never becoming indulgent or melodramatic. We all come to reading for different reasons. I mostly read to be moved and engaged; with this book I very much was. I haven't been able to stop reading this book since I got my hands on a copy.Silver Sparrow is the story of two daughters, Dana Lynn Yarboro and Chaurisse Witherspoon, the bigamist father they share, James Witherspoon, his might-as-well-be brother and shadow Raleigh, and the mothers of the two girls, Gwendolyn and Laverne. The backdrop is black, middle class Atlanta during the 1980s but there's also a lot of really interesting and difficult historical context brought into the novel to help explain how the adults, in particular, came to such a complicated pass. The writing is subtle, elegant and the exceptional attention to detail really elevates this book.
I also appreciated how sensitively and honestly the writing detailed the intimate and complex inner lives of teenage girls--their hopes and insecurities and fears are detailed so nicely. As a recovering teenage girl, I found both Dana and Chaurisse eminently relatable. Chaurisse, for example, has created her own taxonomy for girls and there's a real bittersweetness to how she describes "silver" or pretty, popular girls and where she stands in relation to those girls.The pacing is another strong element of Silver Sparrow. Given that the novel is told in two parts, first from Dana's point of view then from Chaurisse's point of view, I wondered how the story could possibly be resolved effectively and how all the tension built in the first part could be capitalized on in the second part. In fact, when I first realized the novel had a two-part structure I was actually kind of irritated because I thought we were going back to the beginning just when I was completely invested but I have to tell you, this novel is smartly written and controlled and there are many craft lessons to be learned in reading Silver Sparrow. The second part of the novel complements the first part really nicely and in its own way, Chaurisse's story picks up right where we have diverged from Dana's while also giving us a clear sense of how she got to where and who she is. By the end of the novel, I literally could not turn the pages fast enough. More than once I found myself holding my breath. I know a book is damn good when I stop breathing. Silver Sparrow is, by far, the best book I've read this year and I return to it often. You won't regret getting your hands on this book.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Silver Sparrow
0 comments:
Post a Comment