Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The book club just finished Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. It was absolutely brilliant. It was exactly what the world needs in this moment. Exactly what we all need in this moment. Yaa Gyasi, invested insane amounts of time in the research of this book. Not reading it is an actual insult to the labor she put into it. This is one of those works that should be taught in every highschool. Everyone should read and know this book. If you don’t go get yurself a copy immediately. The book club was floored by this one.

We read this to discuss it on the third Sunday afternoon of February. That is when the book club meets each month, here on my homestead. Unfortunately, there was a freak snow storm and we got snowed out. So we pushed our meeting date till the 4th Tuesday of the month. We gathered by the wood stove and we had a good long interesting chat. This book kinda opened the flood gates of everyone who has something that makes them less than standard issue, who could all see a bit of themselves or the treatment of themselves while looking at the treatment and history portrayed in this book. Staying on topic was therefore hard. Didn’t make matters any easier that I was having an allergic reaction and was on some benadryl… Keeping order went out the window down to the mine, where it died of black lung,

This book, begins by testing our assumptions. Today, we think of men going from woman to woman and starting families. We don’t consider often that a woman can be captured, and missused and that a family can start that way also…. Then later, that same woman can willingly start a family. That is how the story told in this book begins. A woman has 2 daughters who never meet each other. They grow up in 2 different villages. One is married to a british man who lives in a big white castle in Ghana, where he works in the slave trade. The other, is captured and dragged off to the hell beneath that castle and is sold into slavery. She is then dragged across the ocean. The book follows the lineages of both women through time and history. One line, takes place largely in Ghana, the other, hauled accross the ocean in chains, ends up in the south. Slavery and all that ickiness, Then freedom, where people still are not free. The story that might have broken our hearts the most was the story of H. The progeny of a decendant of the enslaved sister born to a mother who was born free and then got hauled back and enslaved during the days of The Bloodhound Laws. He was born into captivity and was eventually freed. Only to be captured and sent down into a mine. Where he was worked brutally. Rather than give up though, he did his terrible sentence for his non crime crime, and then went to work in mines professionally. he joined a union and well… The rest is history. Eventually his descendants would reach Harlem and get destroyed by drugs, only to pull themselves out of that fresh hell. While in Ghana, all kinds of other things were going on. A very lucky man called unlucky, was failing to thrive as a farmer. A crazy woman dreamed of fire….. Finally a teacher and his employed housekeeper married, had a child and moved accross the ocean….. Each story in this book was absolutely amazing. Each story was remarkable and you find yourself changed as a human being for having read it.

One of my favorite things about this book, was the way Yaa Gyasi, was so nuanced with blame for slavery. Long before white colonials came to Africa, there were wars between the villages and tribes resulting in slavery. Sometimes leading to dehumanizing situations for those captives that wound up as slaves. Colonials didn’t bring evil to African shores. Rape already existed so did slavery. That being said…. Colonials changed the scale of these things and altered a lot of other aspects about them. Colonials, came to take over. They viewed those different from them as beneath them. Saw them as a product for sale and use. But they were not alone in the slave trade. I learned so much. I never knew that Africans themselves played a roll in creating the tragedy that played out. That being said…. Responsibility isn’t equal. Shared perhaps to some extent. But colonials definitely hold the most responsibility.

Yaa Gyasi, walks us through the history of both Ghana and American Black History simultaneously. She bounces from the lineage of one sister to the other back and forth through time. For some it was a bit hard to follow at times, because there were so many amazing characters. It was also incredible how Yaa Gyasi, 2wove the stories of past generations she covered into the current character of interest’s story, without stealing the story from that character. That must have taken some serious effort from the writer.

Amazing questions were asked about human nature. Amazing lessons on history were taught. I often felt out of my depth in the history because I didn’t recognize any of it. Which made this book all the more worthwhile to read. I grew as a person from reading this book. So did every member of the book club. One of the most enduring questions that I am still thinking about is…. What do we owe the people and descendants of people who built so much of the amazing stuff we take for granted in less than human circumstances? What do we owe to ourselves? How can we use this terrible tragedy and horror to create a better world? Does that better world start with knowing each other’s history? Yaa Gyasi, made an amazing case that it does.

There is so much I want to say about this book but it will never be enough. In addition. I am not eloquent enough to put to words much of what this book meant to me. But I 2will say, Thank you Yaa Gyasi. You made me a better person.

If you are looking for an incredible experience, if you are open to learning about a side of history you might not know, if you are open to having your views tested, this is a wonderful book for you. If you are not….. You are what is wrong with this world, the reason ugly parts of history repeat, and you are exactly the person that needs to read this book the most. I hope everyone will give this book a shot. Because it really is one of those books that everyone should internalize.

Other books the Book Club has read lately, include, Hello Beautiful, which was also absolutely amazing. I would encourage everyone to read it. The way it was written was fabulous. The range of emotion and generational trauma it covered was astonishing as well. In that respect I suppose it shared something with Homegoing, as it too discusses the way trauma impacts generations. Just prior to Homegoing, we read Euphoria, which was also an interesting read. Though if I have to be honest it really wasn’t my favorite. It was a fictional account of a woman anthropologist very loosely based on the life of Margaret Meade. I felt a little strange about viewing it that way as some of the departures from her life were actually rather massive. The ending was rather dark, and half the time I didn’t know which character was narating. However, it was an interesting study of human ownership on a different level. It was about the ownership that is part of romatic relationships. It was about a love triangle that vented itself on people untouched by the modern western world, destroyed, then vacated suddenly, leaving behind carnage. It ended in carnage as well, very differently from how Margaret Meade actually ended. But I don’t want to ruin it. Because while it wasn’t my favorite, many in the book club absolutely loved it, and many people in the world will love it. I didn’t dislike it. I just preferred Hello Beautiful and Homegoing I suppose. But all three have wonderful gifts for those that read them.

Underneath Homegoing, you see another book. That is my personal reading. I read an alarming amount. One thing I read a lot about is homesteading. The book is called The Foxfire Book 1. Originally it was a magazine published by a school class in Appalachia. They gathered and wrote about the old folk traditions and self sufficient ways of living. It is part of a 12 book series on this general subject. Each book focuses on different issues and things from this older way of living. The Foxfire books, are some of the most profound works of Homesteader literature. They are one of the most important how to books for this way of life. I would encourage everyone interested in homesteading as a way of life, to obtain these books. They are indispensable for this lifestyle.

Thank you for reading
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm