Silver Sparrow

Jones, Tayari. Silver Sparrow. Chapel Hill: Algonquin 2011. Print.

First Sentences:

My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.

He was already married ten years when he first clamped eyes on my mother. In 1968, she was working at the gift-wrap counter at Davison's downtown when my father asked her to wrap the carving knife he had bought his wife for their wedding anniversary. Mother said she knew that something wasn't right between a man and a woman when the gift was a blade.

Description:

Thus begins Tayari Jones's highly engaging, challenging novel, Silver Sparrow. James Witherspoon was happily married to Laverne with a daughter Chaurisse. Then he met and fell in love with the beautiful Gwen. Knowing full well James was already married, Gwen married James anyways and produced a daughter, Dana. It is Dana who narrates the first half of this unusual family situation.

James doesn't hide Laverne and his original family from Gwen and Dana, but he does conceal his new second family from Laverne and Chaurisse while living his double life in the same city, splitting time between the two families. James chooses to give Laverne and Chaurisse an affluent lifestyle while relegating Gwen and Dana to second class status. He is loving, but simply cannot make public his illegal second family, nor afford to support both in the same grandiose manner. 

But fifteen-year-old Dana, as the "outside" child, decides to change things. She befriends Chaurisse, knowing they are sisters but keeps secret that information from Chaurisse. Together, without revealing their new friendship to their mothers, Dana and Chaurisse explore each other's home and family. Their interpersonal relationship drives each one to new levels of understanding of the complexity of separate families, boyfriends, and lifestyles. But only Dana know the truth about their shared father.

Then, just as you have everything figured out and personalities neatly explained, Chaurisse takes over the narration of the second half of the book. It is a unexpected twist to see the same story from her very different perspective. She becomes a much more complex character than we readers formerly believed, and her questions about Dana and her own confusing lifestyle build to a surprising climax.

Author Jones is a wonderful writer, portraying interesting characters in situations that are both unique and yet highly believable and engrossing. Her writing style is clean, almost breezy, despite the difficult subject matter. The strength of the book is in each of the characters: James, Gwen, Dana, Chaurisse, and many more friends and family members. All are completely human, sympathetic in many ways yet sometimes difficult to accept for the questionable decisions they make. No heroes or villains here, just ordinary people trying to deal with a difficult situation.

I loved the book as I enjoyed An American Marriage also by Tavari Jones. Definitely a writer to read now and hopefully in many more books in the future.

Love is a maze. Once you get in it, you're pretty much trapped. Maybe you manage to claw your way out, but then what have you accomplished?

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Jones, Tayari. An American Marriage  

Celestial and Roy, newly married, are thrown into chaos when Roy is falsely accused and jailed for twelve years for a crime he didn't commit. Of course, both people and their friends and family adapt in different ways. Excellent. (previously reviewed here)