Good Dirt: A Novel

I really enjoyed this book. I love books that go back and forth between the past and the present, and I love historical fiction. Some of the retelling of the enslaved family members really broke my heart, but It was needed to connect the readers to the main character's family's love of their heirloom.

I was excited to read this book because it is the same author as Black Cake. Wilkerson does a great job of weaving together a present-day story that starts with a tragedy and a story of slavery and racism. Time stopped for 10-year-old Ebby Freeman when she heard the shot that killed her brother and shattered a family heirloom (a stoneware jar). The Freemans are one of the only Black families in a well to do New England neighborhood. The crime is never solved and years later, after Ebby's high profile engagements falls apart, her family is once again in the spotlight. Ebby flees to France, but the past seems to follow her. Ebby is not only processing her loss (brother, romance and family treasure) but the loss her parents suffered as well. Soon Ebby realizes the jar contains more than just her family's history.

The past and the present are told through multiple perspectives. This is a well written character driven story with many themes: grief, slavery, racism, ancestry, inheritance and the importance of respecting history to understand our present. We inherit the stories of our past and can use them to shape our future. I also really liked the short chapters! So 4 ⭐️ because it does have a lot of storylines. Overall, I really liked it!

I really enjoyed the historical narrative of the "Old Mo" jar, but I found the modern romantic subplot to be lacking. I tend to read more historical fiction than romance, which could be a reason it just fell flat for me.

It was a good book and very well written. However, there was sooo many characters and so many eras that each story could have been their own book. I know what the author was trying to do but maybe should have been written as a series or prequels.

Good Dirt invites readers deep into its characters’ interior worlds, relying on introspection rather than dialogue to move the story forward—a choice that offers emotional depth but sometimes leaves the narrative feeling stagnant. While I understood the intention behind the dual timelines—to braid ancestral history with the present—the connection often felt more intellectual than lived. The symbolic jar, positioned as both heirloom and vessel of liberation, never quite carried the emotional gravity it was meant to. Instead, it read as a crafted metaphor rather than an embodied link between generations. Still, I appreciated the novel’s ambition to explore inheritance, healing, and the quiet echoes of the past—it just didn’t always feel as rooted as its title suggests.