Home Going by Yaa Gyasi

Mr Slave Trade

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is a set of stories spanning three centuries, following two separate lines of the same family originating in Ghana.  One sister marries a slaver, the other is captured and sold into the slave trade.  Each chapter shows a snippet of the lives of each generation.

Content Warning: Homegoing includes characters being burnt alive, sexual abuse and rape, graphic descriptions of slavery and physical abuse.

Story  ☆☆★★★

This is the first time I've felt poorly qualified to give an opinion on a book.  I'm a white European woman and I acknowledge both my privilege and my lack of education about the history of the slave trade, or indeed pre-integration USA.  I will do my best, but know that these opinions come from a point of privilege and I am by no means an authority on the events Home Going covers.

That said, Homegoing makes me want to know more.  There have been several films following the lives of slaves, but I have not come across so many that follow the after shocks of slavery.  The story emphasises the legacy of both family and culture.  Reading about the treatment of mixed race people who remained behind in what we now call Ghana was something new, for me.  As was reading about how America dealt with the abolition of slavery, the ways and means to keep slaves without calling it slavery.

For me, this book could have been much longer.  There were individual stories where I wanted to hear much more.  Only one brief chapter is given to each individual, and for some it just wasn't enough.  I felt like the stories ended just as I was getting to know the characters, and I wanted to hear more about America or Ghana in that point in time.  

I don't know whether this is because Gyasi is a first time author, but it felt like the publisher had done their best to keep the book short.  It finishes on exactly 300 pages, and the edition I read had very small print, suggesting the publisher wanted to keep it in the sub-300 page market.

Style  ☆☆★★★

Gyasi's writing style is beautiful.  She makes the villages and the rainforest very real, and has a true lyricism to her prose.  She also doesn't shy away from unpleasant topics or descriptions.  Equally, I felt like it would have been nice to know New York better (or at all) when reading the sections set in Harlem.  She describes streets and districts that I'm sure would be very enjoyable if you knew the areas in question, and could appreciate the history of the location as well as of the people.  There is some repetition in her writing.  People wet themselves quite frequently.

I found Gyasi's style quite readable, but still made quite slow going through the book -- possibly due to the aforementioned small text.  I averaged out at 40 pages a day, when I usually read around 70.

There is a family tree at the start of the book, which is usually something I roll my eyes at -- probably because I associate the idea with dull epic fantasies and authors who want to show off how expansive their ideas are.  In Homegoing it was genuinely helpful, as the book  moved further and further away from the original sisters.  As the mortality rate in this novel is pretty low, it helped me remember who had come from the slave trade, who had benefited from it.

Substance  ☆★★★★

I feel like Homegoing was both enjoyable and educational.  I'm wary of describing fiction as educational, as I know from reading historical European fiction vs. history textbooks that liberties can be taken.  It felt like I gained a flavour of Ghanaian culture and the ripples that slavery has left behind it in that country.  I'd now really like to visit Ghana to find out more -- visit the Cape Coast castle and see the places the book describes.

I also feel like I gained more context on the roots of racism in the West and a different perspective.  As a white person from a formerly colonial country, this was at times a tough read (Poor me, right?).  But I feel like I learned, and enjoyed this beautiful book.

Verdict  ☆☆★★★

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is an excellent first novel: beautifully written, insightful and original.  I just wish there had been more of it.  This book could easily have stretch to 500+ pages and still have been engaging.