An Instant New York Times Bestseller
An Oprah Book Club Selection
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction
An Instant Washington Post, USA Today, and Indie Bestseller
Ailey Pearl Garfield is reared in the north but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle that's made more difficult by a hovering trauma. Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story - and the song - of America itself.