These ghosts are family : a novel / Maisy Card.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2020Copyright date: ©2020Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover editionDescription: 271 pages : genealogical table ; 22 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781982117436
- 1982117435
- 9781982117443
- 1982117443
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
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Dr. James Carlson Library | Fiction | Card, Maisy | Available | 33111009429438 | ||||
|
Adult Book
|
Northport Library | Fiction | Card, Maisy | Available | 33111008996320 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
PEN/Hemingway Award For Debut Novel Finalist
Shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A "rich, ambitious debut novel" ( T he New York Times Book Review ) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.
Stanford Solomon's shocking, thirty-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley.
And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.
These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel's decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of a single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the houseboy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley's actions.
This "rich and layered story" ( Kirkus Reviews ) explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is a "beguiling...vividly drawn, and compelling" ( BookPage , starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.
"Centers on Abel and Vera Paisley, a working-class Jamaican couple striving to build a better life for their children. Abel travels to London in the early 1960s in search of fortune. Instead, he sees an opportunity to escape the drudgery of his life by faking his death and assuming a new identity. Vera, now a widow, is racked with guilt over her husband's "death" and takes out her grief on her children, Irene and Vincent. The effects of Abel's decision reverberate across generations. Ghosts follows the Paisleys over time and across continents, as they wrestle with the burdens of family lore and struggle to forge independent identities. Despite everything, Abel finds a second chance at love. Vincent follows his dream to move to New York. Irene also moves to New York but realizes you can never fully leave the past behind. Set in the United States and Jamaica, Card's debut incorporates elements of gothic fiction and Jamaican folklore to explore the immigrant experience, as told through the voices of these flawed, memorable characters. In luminous prose that announces the arrival of a new American talent, These Ghosts are Family inspects the weight of long-held secrets, the limits of forgiveness, and the complexities of family ties"-- Provided by publisher.