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.

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.

Good Dirt left me feeling deeply connected to the characters and to the past. I was moved by how one broken jar could carry so much history, grief, and love. Ebby’s journey felt honest and tender, and I appreciated how the novel honored memory. It reminded me that healing isn’t always linear, and that sometimes the most ordinary objects hold the most extraordinary truths.

This is a multi-generational story of a Black family that starts in Africa and continues to the present day. Ebby (Ebony) is a young Black woman who lived with her well-to-do parents on the Connecticut shore. One day, there was a burglary at her house and her older brother was killed. Later, she is engaged to marry Henry, but he jilts her and leaves her alone on her wedding day. She has suffered enough and goes to France to visit a friend and help her with her hotel business. Then, Henry and his new girlfriend arrive to stay in the guest house!

The multiple storylines are confusing. There's the young, pregnant girl who is captured in Africa and gives birth to a young son, Moses (Mo) who becomes a potter. He creates the famous "Mo" jar that had once sat in a place of reverence in Ebby's father's office until it was broken on the day her brother was murdered. There is a lot about the creation of the jar and the subsequent descendants of the slaves who eventually became known as the Freedman family. I found it difficult to connect to the characters, and did not find the story very compelling.

A dramatic family story that spans mulit generations. Wilkerson's detailed and descriptive writing vividly brings to life each character. While a tragic story is the main theme line, the story wraps up beautifully satisfying.