Silver Sparrow

thenextgoodbook.com
What’s it about?
The novel begins with the line, "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist." So the story had me from the first line. Tayari Jones is most well-known as the author of An American Marriage, but I enjoyed this earlier book as well. The story is told from two different points of view. James Witherspoon's has two daughters from different marriages and they each serve as narrators. Both stories are compelling.

What did it make me think about?
Secret lives...

Should I read it?
Tayari Jones can tell a story! This novel takes place in Atlanta in the 1990's and portrays a world I didn't know much about. That is always appealing to me.

Quote-
"And this is how it started. Just with coffee and the exchange of their long stories. Love can be incremental. Predicaments,too. Coffee can start a life just as it can start a day. This was the meeting of tow people destined to love from before they were born, from before they made choices that would complicate their lives. This love just rolled toward my mother as though she were standing at the bottom of a steep hill. Mother had no hand in this, only heart."

If you liked this try-
​Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
​The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
​The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinit
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Great read

Once again, book diet is intact as this was a library book and this is another great recommendation from Books On The Nightstand podcast.

This book starts out with "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist." In the late 60s, James meets Gwen and they fall in love and have a daughter, Dana. Problem is, James was already married and had been for 10 years before he laid eyes on Gwen. He already had a daughter as well. Oh what tangled webs we weave....

This story is told, first, from the side of daughter #2 - Dana. James and her mother married, albeit illegally, and he's a part time dad to Dana. Both families live in the same town and James does his best to impress upon family #2 that they are the secret family. They can't be upsetting his regular family life. It does seem that he tries to be a good father and provides for Dana, but she's obviously second.

The second part of the book is told by Chaurisse, James' daughter #1. You feel for both girls because they end up meeting and becoming friends. Unfortunately, Dana knows all about Chaurisse but Chaurisse is clueless as to who Dana really is. It's a tangled mess of a man wanting the best of both worlds and wanting two families. It can't possibly stay calm and sweet for him, and them, and it doesn't. Everyone's hands are forced and choices are made.

I appreciate that this book was told from the perspective of the daughters, the truly innocent of this. They are both played as pawns by their mothers and their father. Clearly, their parents played the game and they were the losers but one did "win" a full time dad, while the other loses.

This book is definitely worth a second and third read. So beautifully written with characters I still remember so vividly even though I read it over a year ago. So many niche yet relatable topics of conflict that anyone can appreciate.

“𝘐 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘭𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘺. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵, 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘺.” Who would you feel worse for: a daughter who is a secret from her father’s other family but knows all about her half-sister’s life, or the daughter who is openly loved by her father but doesn’t know about his secret family?