Promise

Author: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Hardcover

Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the civil right movement sweeps the nation.

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Summary

Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the civil right movement sweeps the nation.

Description

'Powerful' New Statesman | 'Enchanting' Sunday Times | 'Haunting' Mail on Sunday

'A magical, magnificent novel, that amounts to a secret history of an America we think we know, but never really knew' Marlon James

The people of Salt Point are afraid of the world beyond their rural town. Most of them are born, live and die never having gone more than twenty or thirty miles from houses that are crammed with generations of their families. But something shifts at the end of summer 1957. Change makes its way to Salt Point.

The Kindred sisters - Ezra and Cinthy - grew 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 neighbours, 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 New England village perched high up on coastal bluffs.

But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbours, 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 a threat to their way of life. Amidst 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.

'A novel so potent, one wonders if it's secretly a magic spell' Kiran Desai

Critic Reviews

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 -- Kiran Desai, author of THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS
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 trajectories collide - how could they not - and the result bowls us over with shock and grief, but eventually fills our hearts with awe and wonder -- Marlon James, author of Moon Witch, Spider King
A beautifully rendered narrative and a startlingly fresh voice. I fell in love with the people between these pages. This is truly the first book in a long time where I had to force myself to stop reading -- Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of RED AT THE BONE
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, this book 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 -- Walter Mosley, New York Times-bestselling author of EVERY MAN A KING
Promise is a stunning exploration of the weight and triumph of legacy, of what it has cost Black Americans to make homes in a country where violence and terror pursue them, and of all of the things it can mean to be called home. A graceful and urgent novel. -- Danielle Evans, author of THE HOUSE OF HISTORICAL CORRECTIONS

About the Author

Rachel Eliza Griffiths is an artist, poet, and novelist. Her recent hybrid collection of poetry and photography, Seeing the Body, was selected as the winner of the 2021 Hurston/Wright Foundation Award in Poetry, the winner of the 2020 Paterson Poetry Prize, and a finalist for the 2021 NAACP Image Award. Griffiths' work has appeared widely, including The New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Poetry (2020, 2021), Tin House, and many others. She lives in New York City.