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A Novel
by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Book Reviewed by:Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation in this "magical, magnificent novel" (Marlon James) from "a startlingly fresh voice" (Jacqueline Woodson).
The people of Salt Point could indeed be fearful about the world beyond themselves; most of them would be born and die without ever having gone more than twenty or thirty miles from houses that were crammed with generations of their families... . But something was shifting at the end of summer 1957.
The Kindred sisters—Ezra and Cinthy—have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs.
But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra's best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way. And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality, and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as threats to their way of life. Amid escalating violence, prejudice, and fear, bold Ezra and watchful Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they've built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival.
In luminous, richly descriptive writing, Promise celebrates one family's story of resistance. It's a book that will break your heart—and then rebuild it with courage, hope, and love.
1
The day before our first day of school always signaled the end of the time Ezra and I loved most. Not time like the clocks that ticked and rang their alarms every morning; we knew that time didn't really begin or end. What we meant by time was happiness, a careless joy that sprawled its warm, sun-stained arms through our days and dreams for eight glorious weeks until our teachers arrived back in our lives, and our parents remembered their rules about shoes, bathing, vocabulary quizzes, and home training.
More than anything, we prayed that the air would remain mild for as long as possible, mid-October even, so that we could retain some of our summer independence, free to roam the land we knew and loved. We weren't yet grown, but even the adults could pinpoint when time would tell us we would no longer be young.
We mourned summertime's ending and made predictions about autumn and ourselves. Mostly we repeated all the different ways that summer was more honest than the rest of the year. It...
Promise beautifully captures how teenagers become more aware of everything around them and wonder about their place in the world. The prose is heart-rending and detailed in its description of racism, which eventually becomes violent, targeting two families and changing their lives forever. Rachel Eliza Griffiths expertly tells a story of racial tension and discrimination, self-exploration, and the simple right to exist amid the spread of the Civil Rights Movement in Maine...continued
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(Reviewed by Gabriella Harrison).
Kiran Desai, author of The Inheritance of Loss
Promise is forged in a crucible of irrational violence and darkness that paradoxically gives birth to luminous, resilient love. This is a novel so potent, written in such transcendent prose, one wonders if it's secretly a magic spell. It's a stunning achievement. Marlon James, author of Moon Witch, Spider King
This is a magical, magnificent novel that amounts to a secret history of an America we think we know but never really knew, where girls reckon with the beauty and terror of girlhood, mortal Black bodies reckon with immortal Black souls, while America reckons with the terror of its beastly, bloody self. The result bowls us over with shock and grief, but eventually fills our hearts with awe and wonder. Walter Mosley, author of Blood Grove
At its core, Promise concerns the illusion of security that we, Black Americans, harbor in our souls—that generational ache to believe that we can finally lay down the fear of what potential tragedy awaits us around the next corner, and the one after that. Poetic and powerful, Promise slices through self-delusion with its many faces of heroism, loss, and the grace it takes to find a sense of equality in our hearts.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths' debut novel Promise is set in Maine at a time when the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was spreading to that state. Racial tensions were rising as white folks who resented calls for equality began viewing the presence of Blacks, no matter how few, as a threat to their existence.
Although racism in Maine might have been more subtle than in many other states, it was still expressed through the constant reminder of Blacks' second-class citizenship that denied them rights, including access to equal housing and employment. Black students also experienced ridicule from teachers who felt Blacks didn't deserve to attend the same schools as white folks.
With the post–World War II arrival ...
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