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Redwood and Wildfire
Andrea Hairston's alternate history adventure, Redwood and Wildfire , is the winner of the Otherwise Award and the Carl Brandon Kindred Award.
At the turn of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville, which slides into moving pictures. Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images.
Redwood, an African American woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from Georgia to Chicago, from haunted swampland to a "city of the future." They are gifted performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the wondrous world they imagine, not just on stage and screen, but on city streets, in front parlors, in wounded hearts. The power of hoodoo is the power of the community that believes in its capacities to heal.
Living in a system stacked against them, Redwood and Aidan's power and talent are torment and joy. Their search for a place to be who they want to be is an exhilarating, painful, magical adventure.
At the turn of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville, which slides into moving pictures. Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images.
Redwood, an African American woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from Georgia to Chicago, from haunted swampland to a "city of the future." They are gifted performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the wondrous world they imagine, not just on stage and screen, but on city streets, in front parlors, in wounded hearts. The power of hoodoo is the power of the community that believes in its capacities to heal.
Living in a system stacked against them, Redwood and Aidan's power and talent are torment and joy. Their search for a place to be who they want to be is an exhilarating, painful, magical adventure.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2011
46 people are currently reading
6418 people want to read
About the author
Andrea Hairston
20 books375 followersAndrea Hairston is an African-American science fiction and fantasy playwright and novelist who is best known for her novels Mindscape and Redwood and Wildfire. Mindscape, Hairston's first novel, won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and short-listed for the Philip K. Dick Award and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.
She is the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre and has created original productions with music, dance, and masks for more than a decade. Hairston is also the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. She teaches playwriting, African, African American, and Caribbean theatre literature. Her plays have been produced at Yale Rep, Rites and Reason, the Kennedy Center, StageWest, and on public radio and television. In addition, Hairston has translated plays by Michael Ende and Kaca Celan from German to English.
(source: Wikipedia)
She is the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre and has created original productions with music, dance, and masks for more than a decade. Hairston is also the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. She teaches playwriting, African, African American, and Caribbean theatre literature. Her plays have been produced at Yale Rep, Rites and Reason, the Kennedy Center, StageWest, and on public radio and television. In addition, Hairston has translated plays by Michael Ende and Kaca Celan from German to English.
(source: Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
June 1, 2012
I've been listening to the Carolina Chocolate Drops for the past few months now. I've always been a fan of bluegrass, but when I learned that blacks also did old timey music, that it was the precursor to the blues, it was like discovering a history I never knew of myself. Reading Redwood and Wildfire was also like that.
Having lived in Chicago most of my life, I never understood what my ancestors went through when they migrated from the south. I married a white man by choice; I have white friends by choice; everything I do from music to church is based on the freedom of choice. I doubt I could have done any of the things I'm doing now back then, not so openly and freely. Reading "Redwood and Wildfire" reminded of what my grandmother told me when we were watching "The Help": In the south, you could live next to white people but you can't be better than them. In the north, you can be better than white people; you just can't live next to them.
Aidan and Redwood lived in the wrong time. As George says in the book: "Peach Grove is no place to be a man." Redwood learns it's no no place for a woman either. Neither, for that matter, is Chicago. This book deals with some hard issues: lynchings, Jim Crow, minstrel shows, prejudice. Redwood wants to live her life free, and when she finally runs of to Chicago, she has to deal with the shame of 'cooning' in minstrel shows. Aidan, meanwhile, is haunted from the ghost of Redwood's mother, who had been lynched before his eyes, trying to drown out her pleas to "do right" with alcohol.
Yet, there is always an underlying streak of optimism. You have Iris, Redwood youngest sister, who is joy incarnate, You have Doc, who has a superiority complex yet deep compassion for hurt people, and Carissa, probably my favorite character of the book, an uptight Christian who becomes Redwood's closest ally.
And there is magic. Wonderful, beautiful, wild magic. Redwood catches a typhoon in her hand, then acts as if it's no big deal. People change into animals in a blink of an eye. There's time travel. A wild dance with a lionness. And lots of hoodoo. And at the heart of all this magic is a love story, as Redwood and Aidan dance around each other, filled with desire, but afraid to get too close.
Being in an interracial relationship myself, this book truly nutured me. It was also wonderful to see my hometown, both painted as a city a dreams and the broken down, racially separated place it really was (and in many parts, still is). I can see why this won the Tiptree. It had me crying and laughing all the way to the end. 5 banjos out of 5, and may I ask where is the movie of this? SOMEONE MAKE A MOVIE FOR THIS. And put the Carolina Chocolate Drops on the soundtrack. It will be awesome.
Having lived in Chicago most of my life, I never understood what my ancestors went through when they migrated from the south. I married a white man by choice; I have white friends by choice; everything I do from music to church is based on the freedom of choice. I doubt I could have done any of the things I'm doing now back then, not so openly and freely. Reading "Redwood and Wildfire" reminded of what my grandmother told me when we were watching "The Help": In the south, you could live next to white people but you can't be better than them. In the north, you can be better than white people; you just can't live next to them.
Aidan and Redwood lived in the wrong time. As George says in the book: "Peach Grove is no place to be a man." Redwood learns it's no no place for a woman either. Neither, for that matter, is Chicago. This book deals with some hard issues: lynchings, Jim Crow, minstrel shows, prejudice. Redwood wants to live her life free, and when she finally runs of to Chicago, she has to deal with the shame of 'cooning' in minstrel shows. Aidan, meanwhile, is haunted from the ghost of Redwood's mother, who had been lynched before his eyes, trying to drown out her pleas to "do right" with alcohol.
Yet, there is always an underlying streak of optimism. You have Iris, Redwood youngest sister, who is joy incarnate, You have Doc, who has a superiority complex yet deep compassion for hurt people, and Carissa, probably my favorite character of the book, an uptight Christian who becomes Redwood's closest ally.
And there is magic. Wonderful, beautiful, wild magic. Redwood catches a typhoon in her hand, then acts as if it's no big deal. People change into animals in a blink of an eye. There's time travel. A wild dance with a lionness. And lots of hoodoo. And at the heart of all this magic is a love story, as Redwood and Aidan dance around each other, filled with desire, but afraid to get too close.
Being in an interracial relationship myself, this book truly nutured me. It was also wonderful to see my hometown, both painted as a city a dreams and the broken down, racially separated place it really was (and in many parts, still is). I can see why this won the Tiptree. It had me crying and laughing all the way to the end. 5 banjos out of 5, and may I ask where is the movie of this? SOMEONE MAKE A MOVIE FOR THIS. And put the Carolina Chocolate Drops on the soundtrack. It will be awesome.
August 16, 2013
Currently reading....
Imagine if Zora Neale Hurston wrote a fantasy novel....
Imagine if Zora Neale Hurston wrote a fantasy novel....
April 15, 2018
I finished Hairston's harrowing and beautiful Redwood and Wildfire about a week ago, and I've been struggling to write about it in a way that does it justice. But it's today that I learned about the acquittal of one George Zimmerman in the murder trial of one Trayvon Martin, and that -- and what it says about how far we haven't come, or how far we've backslid -- makes a tangled ball of anger in my gut and an urgency to say something now.
Racial tension is one of the central defining elements of Redwood and Wildfire, which is set early in the 20th century, mostly in the imaginary town of Peach Grove, Georgia, and Chicago. Peach Grove is split three-ways: there's colored Peach Grove, Peach Grove, and poor white Peach Grove. The titular protagonists, Redwood Phipps and Aidan Wildfire Cooper, hail from the colored and poor sides of the divide. They are strongly rendered people, believably flawed, but compassionate. By the novel's end I was deeply emotionally invested in both of them. I've seldom wanted a more-or-less positive resolution for characters while simultaneously mistrusting the author's intent to deliver it.
There were lots of things I loved about Redwood and Wildfire: terrific descriptions of the border between realism and magic, evocative prose, clear, but unobtrusive evidence of scrupulous research. But there are scenes where people are motivated by racial hatred that made me feel Hairston was stacking the deck just a bit. Could people really be that pointlessly hateful? That beastly?
And today, to the enduring shame of a jury, a state, and my nation, it's all too easy to believe any horror Hairston concocted, and worse.
Tiny quibble: I started with a library copy of this large book, couldn't finish before the due date, and finished with an electronic copy, which had intrusive copy edit problems -- missing concluding words of sentences, words truncated by hyphens and the like. Still loved the book overall, and I'm eager to read more from Hairston.
Racial tension is one of the central defining elements of Redwood and Wildfire, which is set early in the 20th century, mostly in the imaginary town of Peach Grove, Georgia, and Chicago. Peach Grove is split three-ways: there's colored Peach Grove, Peach Grove, and poor white Peach Grove. The titular protagonists, Redwood Phipps and Aidan Wildfire Cooper, hail from the colored and poor sides of the divide. They are strongly rendered people, believably flawed, but compassionate. By the novel's end I was deeply emotionally invested in both of them. I've seldom wanted a more-or-less positive resolution for characters while simultaneously mistrusting the author's intent to deliver it.
There were lots of things I loved about Redwood and Wildfire: terrific descriptions of the border between realism and magic, evocative prose, clear, but unobtrusive evidence of scrupulous research. But there are scenes where people are motivated by racial hatred that made me feel Hairston was stacking the deck just a bit. Could people really be that pointlessly hateful? That beastly?
And today, to the enduring shame of a jury, a state, and my nation, it's all too easy to believe any horror Hairston concocted, and worse.
Tiny quibble: I started with a library copy of this large book, couldn't finish before the due date, and finished with an electronic copy, which had intrusive copy edit problems -- missing concluding words of sentences, words truncated by hyphens and the like. Still loved the book overall, and I'm eager to read more from Hairston.
September 4, 2017
Redwood and Aiden Wildfire are forced to leave their lives in Peach Grove, Georgia because of mounting racial tensions and the aftermath of sexual violence. In doing so, both have to conquer what haunts them and find their own path to healing before they can fully accept their love for each other and begin a future together.
But what appeared at first to be only a love story laced with history and magical realism now seems to be much more than that. Hairston's story, in my view, asks us to consider how far we are willing to go (in light of the things that haunt us from within and without) in order make positive changes within ourselves and within the world.
Hairston gives us so much material to work with in this "sprawling" story. We have to contend with the post-slavery era in the American South and its impact on African and Caribbean diaspora communities as well as Irish communities and various Indigenous groups. She offers us some insights on the challenges faced by gay men of colour living in the South at the turn of the century. She gently presses us to consider the legitimacy of Hoodoo in distinction to other indigenous practices and in contrast to Christianity. She puts various forms of patriarchy under scrutiny and gives us a menu of ways to explore women's responses to it. And then she throws in time travel, animals that communicate with humans, haints, and reapers. Yes, Ma'am!
I'm so glad that I read this story. The first 100 hundred pages were difficult to get through; in part, because I read them in short bits of time with many interruptions. But the last 300 pages were a pure delight. Each time I had to put the book down, I missed the story and found myself anxious to return to my reading.
Unfortunately, the development of some of the characters and the intra-community interactions were sacrificed for the quickening pace of the plot. I wanted to hear more about Doc and Clarence, the Prince and his wives, Saeed and his establishment of community and romance, the tenuous alliance-building among the Indigenous groups and so much more. These plot lines seemed rushed and abbreviated.
This downside did not result in my overall enjoyment of the book and of Hairston's writing style. I loved how she used words to illustrate the magickal and otherworldly moments - they were matter-of-fact - almost mundane at times, which made them feel so possible... even eerily familiar. I love that about magical realism stories. I also agree with several other goodreads reviewers that Hairston's research was thorough and impeccable - the politics, the music, the art, the agriculture, the media and technology of those times were so smoothly and specifically detailed that I feel as though I have learned something about the history of that time period despite this novel being a work of fiction.
This is the first book written by Hairston that I have read. In a keynote presentation delivered by Hairston about this book, she hinted that Redwood could be the descendant of characters she introduced in a previous science fiction/fantasy novel. If that's the case, I'm inclined to read that book next.
But what appeared at first to be only a love story laced with history and magical realism now seems to be much more than that. Hairston's story, in my view, asks us to consider how far we are willing to go (in light of the things that haunt us from within and without) in order make positive changes within ourselves and within the world.
Hairston gives us so much material to work with in this "sprawling" story. We have to contend with the post-slavery era in the American South and its impact on African and Caribbean diaspora communities as well as Irish communities and various Indigenous groups. She offers us some insights on the challenges faced by gay men of colour living in the South at the turn of the century. She gently presses us to consider the legitimacy of Hoodoo in distinction to other indigenous practices and in contrast to Christianity. She puts various forms of patriarchy under scrutiny and gives us a menu of ways to explore women's responses to it. And then she throws in time travel, animals that communicate with humans, haints, and reapers. Yes, Ma'am!
I'm so glad that I read this story. The first 100 hundred pages were difficult to get through; in part, because I read them in short bits of time with many interruptions. But the last 300 pages were a pure delight. Each time I had to put the book down, I missed the story and found myself anxious to return to my reading.
Unfortunately, the development of some of the characters and the intra-community interactions were sacrificed for the quickening pace of the plot. I wanted to hear more about Doc and Clarence, the Prince and his wives, Saeed and his establishment of community and romance, the tenuous alliance-building among the Indigenous groups and so much more. These plot lines seemed rushed and abbreviated.
This downside did not result in my overall enjoyment of the book and of Hairston's writing style. I loved how she used words to illustrate the magickal and otherworldly moments - they were matter-of-fact - almost mundane at times, which made them feel so possible... even eerily familiar. I love that about magical realism stories. I also agree with several other goodreads reviewers that Hairston's research was thorough and impeccable - the politics, the music, the art, the agriculture, the media and technology of those times were so smoothly and specifically detailed that I feel as though I have learned something about the history of that time period despite this novel being a work of fiction.
This is the first book written by Hairston that I have read. In a keynote presentation delivered by Hairston about this book, she hinted that Redwood could be the descendant of characters she introduced in a previous science fiction/fantasy novel. If that's the case, I'm inclined to read that book next.
December 25, 2022
I came to this book through Hairston's Will Do Magic for Small Change, a contemporary book that follows Redwood and Wildfire's teenage granddaughter. They are in that book, so I really wanted to read their story. This book doesn't disappoint.
Redwood, a black girl growing up in rural Georgia, is a child when her mother is brutally lynched, leaving her, her older brother George, and her baby sister Iris orphaned and in the care of relatives. Redwood and Iris have inherited some of their mother's magic, and have some of their own; they both are powerful. The book picks up when Redwood is 16.
Aidan Cooper Wildfire, 20-ish, is part of the rural community. Accepted as white, he's actually half Irish and half Seminole. He's a farmer, a banjo player and singer, and a high-quality carpenter. He's sometimes visited by the ghost of Redwood's mother, whose murder he witnessed helplessly, for which he has a tremendous amount of guilt though he couldn't do anything to defend her from the twelve masked lynchers. His guilt about this, and later about how he didn't stop a white man's assault on Redwood, drives him to drink. Two wives leave him because of this, and he's known as Crazy Coop.
Aidan and Redwood have an ongoing friendship. As a teenager, Redwood even magically transports them to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, several years in their past. (It drains her, which is scary for both of them, and she can't use that kind of magic often if ever.) Since the book description says so, it's not a spoiler to say that they both end up in Chicago. The description implies that they go together, but they each find their way, and are separated for six years. Also, they are both in Georgia for the first half of the book; the description focuses on Chicago.
The book takes place from 1898 to 1913, so it's well post-slavery, Things are still not good for black people anywhere in the US, but it's more overt and dangerous in the South. I am not usually a fan of books set in the past, but this book is written so well that it drew me right in. The main characters, with all their trauma and baggage, are trying to do good in the world. I found them immensely engaging. And Redwood's and Iris's magic is sometimes simple, sometimes dramatic, definitely life-changing. Healing and taking people's pain; storms; working with fire; engaging with spirits.
Iris is a fascinating person and could merit a book of her own. So could several other characters. George goes to Chicago well before anyone else; his rich, older, and very Christian wife Clarissa turns out to be open to other viewpoints and change. We don't learn too much about perspicacious elderly Aunt Subie in Georgia, but she also has magic and must have a long story. On the way to Chicago, Redwood works with two musicians, shady Eddie and stalwart Milton, who continue performing with her in Chicago. There, she falls in with a gay Persian performer, Saeed, and we later meet his rich prince brother and the brother's three wives. Along with the gay content, women are working on getting the vote, Redwood often dresses in men's clothes, and she and Aidan try to help each other with their traumas. That all sounds maybe too modern, but it works without being discordant.
Redwood is a performer. She already sings and dances, and learns other performing arts in Chicago. The money is best in the movies (silent), and she develops a career in them. She pulls Aiden into it too, and in Will Do Magic... we learn that they became famous performers. I may need to reread that book to put it all together, and I am someone who doesn't reread books.
Redwood, a black girl growing up in rural Georgia, is a child when her mother is brutally lynched, leaving her, her older brother George, and her baby sister Iris orphaned and in the care of relatives. Redwood and Iris have inherited some of their mother's magic, and have some of their own; they both are powerful. The book picks up when Redwood is 16.
Aidan Cooper Wildfire, 20-ish, is part of the rural community. Accepted as white, he's actually half Irish and half Seminole. He's a farmer, a banjo player and singer, and a high-quality carpenter. He's sometimes visited by the ghost of Redwood's mother, whose murder he witnessed helplessly, for which he has a tremendous amount of guilt though he couldn't do anything to defend her from the twelve masked lynchers. His guilt about this, and later about how he didn't stop a white man's assault on Redwood, drives him to drink. Two wives leave him because of this, and he's known as Crazy Coop.
Aidan and Redwood have an ongoing friendship. As a teenager, Redwood even magically transports them to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, several years in their past. (It drains her, which is scary for both of them, and she can't use that kind of magic often if ever.) Since the book description says so, it's not a spoiler to say that they both end up in Chicago. The description implies that they go together, but they each find their way, and are separated for six years. Also, they are both in Georgia for the first half of the book; the description focuses on Chicago.
The book takes place from 1898 to 1913, so it's well post-slavery, Things are still not good for black people anywhere in the US, but it's more overt and dangerous in the South. I am not usually a fan of books set in the past, but this book is written so well that it drew me right in. The main characters, with all their trauma and baggage, are trying to do good in the world. I found them immensely engaging. And Redwood's and Iris's magic is sometimes simple, sometimes dramatic, definitely life-changing. Healing and taking people's pain; storms; working with fire; engaging with spirits.
Iris is a fascinating person and could merit a book of her own. So could several other characters. George goes to Chicago well before anyone else; his rich, older, and very Christian wife Clarissa turns out to be open to other viewpoints and change. We don't learn too much about perspicacious elderly Aunt Subie in Georgia, but she also has magic and must have a long story. On the way to Chicago, Redwood works with two musicians, shady Eddie and stalwart Milton, who continue performing with her in Chicago. There, she falls in with a gay Persian performer, Saeed, and we later meet his rich prince brother and the brother's three wives. Along with the gay content, women are working on getting the vote, Redwood often dresses in men's clothes, and she and Aidan try to help each other with their traumas. That all sounds maybe too modern, but it works without being discordant.
Redwood is a performer. She already sings and dances, and learns other performing arts in Chicago. The money is best in the movies (silent), and she develops a career in them. She pulls Aiden into it too, and in Will Do Magic... we learn that they became famous performers. I may need to reread that book to put it all together, and I am someone who doesn't reread books.
February 18, 2022
Me the entire time I'm reading this...
44% Done: Slow burn, complex and multi-layered story telling. There is SO MUCH to say about this book. It's robust and far reaching but very much centered on Aiden and Redwood. Full of unpopular choices and likeable characters that you still root for. I love the roundness of it all, like could you even imagine what her outline looked like!?
72% Done: Redwood is such a relatable character which is odd seeing how she is a conjure woman and I am not but I swear I find myself in her in every chapter. She is so real and tactile to me and even though this book is a bit long winded I still have to see how she fares. I will say that this author is heavy handed with the words (she uses all the words) making her books mad long but they are so worth it <3
There is no real way for me to review this book but to say that, if you want a unique spin on black fiction/fantasy/magical realism, then read this book. You will be hard pressed finding a book even remotely similar to this story. It is LONG and requires dedication to the characters but the experience is worth it in the end.
44% Done: Slow burn, complex and multi-layered story telling. There is SO MUCH to say about this book. It's robust and far reaching but very much centered on Aiden and Redwood. Full of unpopular choices and likeable characters that you still root for. I love the roundness of it all, like could you even imagine what her outline looked like!?
72% Done: Redwood is such a relatable character which is odd seeing how she is a conjure woman and I am not but I swear I find myself in her in every chapter. She is so real and tactile to me and even though this book is a bit long winded I still have to see how she fares. I will say that this author is heavy handed with the words (she uses all the words) making her books mad long but they are so worth it <3
There is no real way for me to review this book but to say that, if you want a unique spin on black fiction/fantasy/magical realism, then read this book. You will be hard pressed finding a book even remotely similar to this story. It is LONG and requires dedication to the characters but the experience is worth it in the end.
September 22, 2012
I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I first cracked open Redwood and Wildfire. I was ill prepared for this densely woven, free-spirited kind of writing mixing a horrific lynching, a girl who can catch a hurricane in her hand, stories from an irish/seminole drunkard's life, cooning in Chicago vaudeville, and the kindness of a country doctor lending poetry books to white trash and coloreds in rural Georgia.
Running through the prose is the pulsing, visceral awareness of body; skin, color, breath, and blood, in all the characters.
We join Redwood Phipps as she loses her mother, grows up in the Georgia swamps as a colored hoodoo gal in a town where that makes her feared by all, and dances around half-Irish/half-Seminole Aidan who tries to make his own place in the world through a fog of haint-haunting and alcohol.
Both travel to Chicago where they find their own places as entertainers.
This is not an easy book to read; it's definitely for adults. You can't sit down and gulp it. The narrative is a bit opaque sometimes, either due to dialect or the author's fancy, I don't know, but even when the story takes us hard places, you can't give up on Redwood or Aidan or any of their hard-living and hard-used friends.
You read to pass through the hard times, to shake your fist at the boneyard baron and do a little hoodoo healing on yourself, no matter your own color or background.
I felt as if someone had taken The Color Purple and mixed it with some of the sad-tinged wonder of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude as I read Redwood and Aidan's tale.
Definitely something you should read, but only if you're emotionally prepared.
This Book's Snack Rating: A handful of pistachios for the sometimes-painful shell of race, violence, and discrimination you crack to get to the honey-sweet nut of Aidan and Redwood's magic inside.
Running through the prose is the pulsing, visceral awareness of body; skin, color, breath, and blood, in all the characters.
We join Redwood Phipps as she loses her mother, grows up in the Georgia swamps as a colored hoodoo gal in a town where that makes her feared by all, and dances around half-Irish/half-Seminole Aidan who tries to make his own place in the world through a fog of haint-haunting and alcohol.
Both travel to Chicago where they find their own places as entertainers.
This is not an easy book to read; it's definitely for adults. You can't sit down and gulp it. The narrative is a bit opaque sometimes, either due to dialect or the author's fancy, I don't know, but even when the story takes us hard places, you can't give up on Redwood or Aidan or any of their hard-living and hard-used friends.
You read to pass through the hard times, to shake your fist at the boneyard baron and do a little hoodoo healing on yourself, no matter your own color or background.
I felt as if someone had taken The Color Purple and mixed it with some of the sad-tinged wonder of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude as I read Redwood and Aidan's tale.
Definitely something you should read, but only if you're emotionally prepared.
This Book's Snack Rating: A handful of pistachios for the sometimes-painful shell of race, violence, and discrimination you crack to get to the honey-sweet nut of Aidan and Redwood's magic inside.
March 16, 2017
Initial thoughts:
Redwood and Wildfire is different than Hairston's first novel, Mindscape, but still manages to retain some of what intrigued me in that book. It's more grounded than her debut, but still draws from fantastic elements. One could almost imagine that Redwood and others like her might be the ancestors of the griots of Mindscape, if one had the inclination. This book stands at the intersection of history and fantasy, bound together by a love story that avoids falling into the trap of too-sappy romance, and I enjoyed the journey.
I especially appreciated the attention to "real world" problems facing Black Southern migrants to the North at the turn of the century--The minstrel shows and moving pictures serving both as livelihood and self-mockery, and everything that entailed. Redwood manages, somehow, but Aidan's time playing the "wild Injun" on screen nearly destroys him.
And, of course, there are other challenges the characters encounter: alcoholism, rape, culture shock, racism... Ms. Hairston doesn't flinch from any of it.
I went back and forth on the rating for this, between 3 and 4 stars. On the one hand, I had some trouble consistently connecting to the characters (especially Aidan, who I felt alternating pity and fury at in the first parts of the book). On the other hand, they are oh-so-very human and fallible, and the character development so believable, that I can't help but applaud Andrea Hairston's skill.
Redwood and Wildfire is different than Hairston's first novel, Mindscape, but still manages to retain some of what intrigued me in that book. It's more grounded than her debut, but still draws from fantastic elements. One could almost imagine that Redwood and others like her might be the ancestors of the griots of Mindscape, if one had the inclination. This book stands at the intersection of history and fantasy, bound together by a love story that avoids falling into the trap of too-sappy romance, and I enjoyed the journey.
I especially appreciated the attention to "real world" problems facing Black Southern migrants to the North at the turn of the century--The minstrel shows and moving pictures serving both as livelihood and self-mockery, and everything that entailed. Redwood manages, somehow, but Aidan's time playing the "wild Injun" on screen nearly destroys him.
And, of course, there are other challenges the characters encounter: alcoholism, rape, culture shock, racism... Ms. Hairston doesn't flinch from any of it.
I went back and forth on the rating for this, between 3 and 4 stars. On the one hand, I had some trouble consistently connecting to the characters (especially Aidan, who I felt alternating pity and fury at in the first parts of the book). On the other hand, they are oh-so-very human and fallible, and the character development so believable, that I can't help but applaud Andrea Hairston's skill.
May 23, 2016
I'm not done living these people. I would dearly love a sequel.
May 6, 2022
Redwood Phipps is an African-American girl. Aidan Wildfire Cooper is a Seminole Irish young man. The two are brought together by a hateful act of racial violence, which affects both of them for the remainder of their lives. But both are determined to keep the event from defining them. In Redwood and Wildfire, Andrea Hairston follows these characters as they live, grow, learn how to navigate the world in which they live, and challenge what they can, in order to create the world in which they want to live.
Spanning 15 years and ranging from a small community in rural Georgia to the metropolis of turn-of-the-century Chicago, Andrea Hairston paints a moving, joyful, and disturbing portrait of our past and a mirror of our present. She doesn’t shy away from the racism that was, and continues to be, rampant in our country and our culture, nor does she allow her characters to be defined by it. Hairston explores the various types of entertainment that existed at the turn of the century, including minstrel and wild west shows, vaudeville, and a motion picture industry in its infancy. She illustrates how the songs and stories of minority cultures were mined, adapted, co-opted, and often perverted for the enjoyment of white audiences. She also allows her characters to both strain at, and conform to, those confines in the hopes of being able to perform the material they want in the way they want to do it. This is particularly true of Redwood, who regularly challenges the confines placed on her regarding everything from her speech, her dress, the songs she sings and the stories she tells. Everything she does is with an eye on making her world into the one of which she dreams: a world where she can be who she really, truly is regardless of others’ expectations.
Likewise, Aidan navigates carefully between his dual identities of being Irish, and therefore white, and Seminole, and therefore “colored.” He has grown up with people not knowing what to make of him because he doesn’t fit easily into their preconceived categories of society. And he has been told his entire life that he needs to ignore and forget his native ancestry, whose stories and songs have always been a source of comfort. Then, suddenly, in Chicago, he is valued for his “exotic” appearance and his ability to portray the dominant culture’s idea of what an “injun” is in motion pictures. While it allows him to make more money than he’s ever been able to in more traditional jobs, he finds the work physically taxing and demeaning in ways difficult to articulate. Aidan, too, longs for a world where he can simply be his true self.
While Hairston does not turn away from the darkness of the world, neither does she limit herself to it. Her portrait of our world is also filled with wonders, both scientific and cultural, illustrating how vibrant, varied, and rich our world is made by the differences of the people that inhabit it. The resulting novel is much like life itself, moving between soaring heights and despair defining depths, bridging the gaps between those two extremes with hope, resilience, and just a bit of powerful magic.
Redwood and Wildfire is a novel of creation, destruction, and most importantly of all, possibilities.
Read an interview with the author here.
Reviewed by Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch Library,
Spanning 15 years and ranging from a small community in rural Georgia to the metropolis of turn-of-the-century Chicago, Andrea Hairston paints a moving, joyful, and disturbing portrait of our past and a mirror of our present. She doesn’t shy away from the racism that was, and continues to be, rampant in our country and our culture, nor does she allow her characters to be defined by it. Hairston explores the various types of entertainment that existed at the turn of the century, including minstrel and wild west shows, vaudeville, and a motion picture industry in its infancy. She illustrates how the songs and stories of minority cultures were mined, adapted, co-opted, and often perverted for the enjoyment of white audiences. She also allows her characters to both strain at, and conform to, those confines in the hopes of being able to perform the material they want in the way they want to do it. This is particularly true of Redwood, who regularly challenges the confines placed on her regarding everything from her speech, her dress, the songs she sings and the stories she tells. Everything she does is with an eye on making her world into the one of which she dreams: a world where she can be who she really, truly is regardless of others’ expectations.
Likewise, Aidan navigates carefully between his dual identities of being Irish, and therefore white, and Seminole, and therefore “colored.” He has grown up with people not knowing what to make of him because he doesn’t fit easily into their preconceived categories of society. And he has been told his entire life that he needs to ignore and forget his native ancestry, whose stories and songs have always been a source of comfort. Then, suddenly, in Chicago, he is valued for his “exotic” appearance and his ability to portray the dominant culture’s idea of what an “injun” is in motion pictures. While it allows him to make more money than he’s ever been able to in more traditional jobs, he finds the work physically taxing and demeaning in ways difficult to articulate. Aidan, too, longs for a world where he can simply be his true self.
While Hairston does not turn away from the darkness of the world, neither does she limit herself to it. Her portrait of our world is also filled with wonders, both scientific and cultural, illustrating how vibrant, varied, and rich our world is made by the differences of the people that inhabit it. The resulting novel is much like life itself, moving between soaring heights and despair defining depths, bridging the gaps between those two extremes with hope, resilience, and just a bit of powerful magic.
Redwood and Wildfire is a novel of creation, destruction, and most importantly of all, possibilities.
Read an interview with the author here.
Reviewed by Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch Library,
April 11, 2012
I keep trying to type up this review and then stalling in the middle and rebooting my browser and losing it. I think it is a sign that I should not try to say so much about the book.
This is a sprawling novel following two characters from rural Georgia, across time and distance to their reunion in bustling Chicago of the 'teens. Redwood/Sequoia is a singer, a dreamer, a magic-worker. Adrian Wildfire is a man haunted by bad memories and demon rum. The most important thing is that he truly believes in Redwood, which allows her to work stronger magic, and she believes in him, which enables him to eventually abandon his self-pity.
The texture of this book is amazing. I felt like I could feel the petals of the swamp iris, the dust, the noise of Chicago, the feel of silk clothing. The characters are interesting and distinct, but I felt less connected to them as they got older, like they were less carefully delineated. Overall, I really enjoyed the language, although I was skeptical about the way certain words were called out as being magical, including "believe" and "blues". I felt like it was an over-signal.
The story was meandering, not so much a heroic journey as two people re-enacting the Odyssey from both sides, both the wandering and the waiting.
Read if: You are committed to reading the Tiptree winner each year, you like artistic novels, you understand that any novel representing the period will include racial aggression and sexual violence.
Skip if: You are looking for a book with a more classical narrative arc, you want a conclusive ending.
This is a sprawling novel following two characters from rural Georgia, across time and distance to their reunion in bustling Chicago of the 'teens. Redwood/Sequoia is a singer, a dreamer, a magic-worker. Adrian Wildfire is a man haunted by bad memories and demon rum. The most important thing is that he truly believes in Redwood, which allows her to work stronger magic, and she believes in him, which enables him to eventually abandon his self-pity.
The texture of this book is amazing. I felt like I could feel the petals of the swamp iris, the dust, the noise of Chicago, the feel of silk clothing. The characters are interesting and distinct, but I felt less connected to them as they got older, like they were less carefully delineated. Overall, I really enjoyed the language, although I was skeptical about the way certain words were called out as being magical, including "believe" and "blues". I felt like it was an over-signal.
The story was meandering, not so much a heroic journey as two people re-enacting the Odyssey from both sides, both the wandering and the waiting.
Read if: You are committed to reading the Tiptree winner each year, you like artistic novels, you understand that any novel representing the period will include racial aggression and sexual violence.
Skip if: You are looking for a book with a more classical narrative arc, you want a conclusive ending.
April 2, 2016
Sprawling, at times horrific and completely captivating novel brimful of magic, Redwood and Wildfire is the story of two people struggling to live their truth in a world brimming violent and subtle oppression. Hugely relatable despite being almost entirely outside my (white, Australian) frame of reference, I loved pretty much everything about it.
**wanders off to buy everything Ms. Hairston has ever written**
**wanders off to buy everything Ms. Hairston has ever written**
September 25, 2019
There’s a poetry of anger to this book, in all its forms.
But the anger, like a spell never spills over into screaming. It stays poetry. It’s beautiful.
Reread edit: 9\25/19 not much has changed
I’m passing it on to a friend I think will love it
But the anger, like a spell never spills over into screaming. It stays poetry. It’s beautiful.
Reread edit: 9\25/19 not much has changed
I’m passing it on to a friend I think will love it
May 16, 2023
I was bored at first, but it got a lot more interesting after the first 50-70 pages. I feel like the book did kind of lose steam in the last 50 pages, which is a shame because the middle was very enjoyable — probably because Redwood is a lot more interesting as a character when she's away from Aidan. In general Aidan's character was a downside for me and I found his relationship with Redwood weird considering they met when she was like eleven. I did like the way that his Irish-Seminole heritage was interwoven throughout the narrative. I think that the strongest part of this book is the richness of setting and historical background, especially the supernatural aspects ("boneyard baron" is an alliterative masterpiece). However, I felt that sometimes Hairston's prose was too clipped and didn't flow well; she has a habit of writing action sentences one after the other without any connecting words or phrases. The constant "hisself" and "tiddies" also got somewhat repetitive and annoying after a while. All in all, a solid 3-star read.
February 26, 2025
I loved the story/plot especially with the fact it’s based in history and ties together different cultures. I think where it lost me was the progression of the story. It got winded a few times and I think had it been about 150 pages shorter it would have been even better. (I was in a major slump while reading so that may have also contributed to my disconnect with the writing)
August 31, 2017
Great story, but a little hard to follow at times because there is so much going on in every scene.
July 30, 2025
read this if you liked sinners!
August 16, 2022
"Redwood and Wildfire" is a fantasy novel that takes place during the Great Migration. For those who don't know the Great Migration was a period of time when Black Americans fled Jim Crow South and headed for urban centers in the North such as Philadelphia and Chicago. It follows the star crossed lovers Redwood and Aidan as the follow the path of the Great Migration.
This novel focuses mainly on the hardships faced by the Black and Indigenous community in the south during the early 20th century and goes into the motives for the mass migration northward. It draws on folk practices to build its magic systems.
Overall the fantasy elements of this novel are just a nice bit of dressing over the already fascinating story of people searching for a place where they can live and be free. One of the things I liked about this book was is exploration of how living in traumatic, violent conditions affects people.
This is not a novel for everyone. Aidan is an alcoholic who abuses his wife when we first meet him. While the reasons are explained this might be a deal breaker for some readers. There is rape in this story.
As much as I enjoyed this story I did feel that it started to drag on towards the end. I think tighter editing could have fixed that problem. The last 100 pages were a bit of a chore to read and I was ready for this novel to be over by that point.
Overall, this is a unique, heartfelt novel that celebrates the necessity of poetry and music- the healing power of love- and the strength of family. It is well worth the time it takes to read.
3.5 stars
This novel focuses mainly on the hardships faced by the Black and Indigenous community in the south during the early 20th century and goes into the motives for the mass migration northward. It draws on folk practices to build its magic systems.
Overall the fantasy elements of this novel are just a nice bit of dressing over the already fascinating story of people searching for a place where they can live and be free. One of the things I liked about this book was is exploration of how living in traumatic, violent conditions affects people.
This is not a novel for everyone. Aidan is an alcoholic who abuses his wife when we first meet him. While the reasons are explained this might be a deal breaker for some readers. There is rape in this story.
As much as I enjoyed this story I did feel that it started to drag on towards the end. I think tighter editing could have fixed that problem. The last 100 pages were a bit of a chore to read and I was ready for this novel to be over by that point.
Overall, this is a unique, heartfelt novel that celebrates the necessity of poetry and music- the healing power of love- and the strength of family. It is well worth the time it takes to read.
3.5 stars
March 14, 2022
This could have been good but it painfully missed the mark in a lot of ways. Also I feel like the jacket copy promised one thing and the book delivered something else entirely.
First: There is singing. Which the narrator actually sings in the audiobook which is just too much.
Second: Redwood starts as 11 and ages up through story (she was 16 when I finally said enough and stopped reading) and Aidan (Wildfire) is 20something. We got a whole minute of his character basically thinking about how hot Redwood is and how much trouble he’d be in if anyone knew that and just … no. The jacket pretty clearly markets them as a pair but aside from the age difference (which is significant particularly considering that Redwood is an actual child at the start of the book) Aidan is married at least twice and they are "friends" which we see conveyed with a total of two conversations in the first 20% of the book including one magical time travel trip to Chicago because sure.
Third: Almost every description of a female character spends time discussing the character’s breasts. At length. While calling them “tiddies.” I looked up in an online preview and thought it was saying there were seventeen instances in the book total of the word but having made it through 20% I think that was actually just the number of instances IN THE PREVIEW.
I just cannot.
First: There is singing. Which the narrator actually sings in the audiobook which is just too much.
Second: Redwood starts as 11 and ages up through story (she was 16 when I finally said enough and stopped reading) and Aidan (Wildfire) is 20something. We got a whole minute of his character basically thinking about how hot Redwood is and how much trouble he’d be in if anyone knew that and just … no. The jacket pretty clearly markets them as a pair but aside from the age difference (which is significant particularly considering that Redwood is an actual child at the start of the book) Aidan is married at least twice and they are "friends" which we see conveyed with a total of two conversations in the first 20% of the book including one magical time travel trip to Chicago because sure.
Third: Almost every description of a female character spends time discussing the character’s breasts. At length. While calling them “tiddies.” I looked up in an online preview and thought it was saying there were seventeen instances in the book total of the word but having made it through 20% I think that was actually just the number of instances IN THE PREVIEW.
I just cannot.
April 23, 2012
The 2012 Tiptree Award winner deals with gender-issues subtly and race-relations a little more directly, but at its heart is a story of two people creating the magic necessary to make their dreams come true. In the early years of the twentieth century, Redwood Phipps is an African American girl with the same hoodoo gifts as her mother who meets a violent death when lynched while trying to protect the colored section of Peach Grove, Georgia with magic. Aidan Wildfire is a Seminole and Irish American boy who witnesses the lynching. Though he has magic gifts of his own, his inability to do anything to save Redwood's mother haunts him, driving him to drink. Musical minstrelry shows, Chicago, and motion pictures all come into play as Redwood and Wildfire each seek a safe place to find themselves and love each other. The dense, beautifully crafted prose invites slow and thoughtful reading. Though there are fantasy elements, this is really more a literary novel with fantastical elements than a true fantasy.
Book Pairings: Other literary fantasies such as Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and anything by Alice Hoffman. In terms of subject matter and theme, books by Octavia Butler would be a good match.
Book Pairings: Other literary fantasies such as Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and anything by Alice Hoffman. In terms of subject matter and theme, books by Octavia Butler would be a good match.
September 9, 2016
I really enjoyed this book. I felt like it did a lot of things right. I loved the celebration of black and American Native cultures. I loved the fantasy elements that decorated it throughout. And I did really enjoy the characters who got to shine.
When I think about it, it has some superficial characteristics: All good characters are either colored, Native American (or a mix), "Foreign" or Gay. All the bad characters are white. And, you know, I think that kind of distinction is awful in any book so that part makes me a bit sad. But I guess someone has to be the bad guy and in a world of english writing that has reversed that stereotype for centuries, I can deal. I still don't find it any more attractive in this wrapping, either.
But I did love the main characters and felt they were well defined, that there was life blown into them. I did enjoy the way the time period in history was presented, as a new and exotic shift in culture. I loved some of the interesting adventures, the sense of magic that each of us carries with us and wills into action. And I liked the music that you get to be part of throughout.
I'd give it a solid B.
When I think about it, it has some superficial characteristics: All good characters are either colored, Native American (or a mix), "Foreign" or Gay. All the bad characters are white. And, you know, I think that kind of distinction is awful in any book so that part makes me a bit sad. But I guess someone has to be the bad guy and in a world of english writing that has reversed that stereotype for centuries, I can deal. I still don't find it any more attractive in this wrapping, either.
But I did love the main characters and felt they were well defined, that there was life blown into them. I did enjoy the way the time period in history was presented, as a new and exotic shift in culture. I loved some of the interesting adventures, the sense of magic that each of us carries with us and wills into action. And I liked the music that you get to be part of throughout.
I'd give it a solid B.
March 7, 2015
Redwood Phipps is a hoodoo, daughter of one of the most powerful conjure women Peach Grove has even seen. After Garnett is lynched - for the crime of killing the white man that raped her - Redwood's power grows. Aiden Wildfire, known around town as Crazy Coop, has conjure magic of his own. Child of a Seminole man and an Irish woman, it is Aiden who cuts Garnett's body down and befriends young Redwood. Fast forward to history repeating itself; Redwood kills the white man who rapes her and flees to Chicago, taking part in vaudeville shows and blues singing all the way. Aiden catches up to her, and they attempt to make magic of their own in the midst of racial tension, women's suffrage, respectability politics, family ties, and the city that appears to pave the way for the future of the United States. This book covers some hard themes, and invites hatred and tension just by virtue of being set in the early 20th century. Magic, dreaming out loud, conjure, hoodoo, and good old fashioned romance fill these 400-plus pages. Highly recommended for lovers of historical fiction, hoodoo believers, and holders of hope in the face of evil things.
September 9, 2016
This is a book that really dives headfirst into history and place. We're introduced to Redwood as a girl the night her mother is lynched, and follow her as she grows up, flees Georgia for Chicago after an attack and finds success first on the minstrel stage and then silent movies. There's a big cast of characters from all over--Redwood and her family are black and from Georgia, her sister-in-law is a "proper" black lady who means to set a good example, Redwood's true love Aidan Wildfire is part Irish, part Seminole, Redwood's performing partner is Iranian and gay. Redwood herself is also a hoodoo, as is her little sister, and Aidan has his own magic.
One of my favorite parts was when the book describes a movie the cast makes together, The Schoolteacher and The Pirate. You can really see why the movie would be a hit, but it also reads like a real silent movie, especially with the dramatic titles between scenes. The movie's got a lot of tragedy and genuine horror, but ultimately it's got more joy and hope.
One of my favorite parts was when the book describes a movie the cast makes together, The Schoolteacher and The Pirate. You can really see why the movie would be a hit, but it also reads like a real silent movie, especially with the dramatic titles between scenes. The movie's got a lot of tragedy and genuine horror, but ultimately it's got more joy and hope.
February 17, 2017
This terrific book is, in this order:
1) Historical fiction with non-white POV (and oh, what a nice change that is) 2) urban fantasy 3) a love story (but probably not a romance).
It's much less about vaudeville & movies than I would have guessed from its blurb, and all about these characters, their journey (literal and figurative), and the world they live in.
It's crazy well researched, but you probably wouldn't know that unless you happened to be reading something like The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration at the same time (which I was).
I was expecting something kind of like an answer to my problems with The Night Circus, which left me cold. Its not that, which is juts peachy. It could use a good editor in spots. But all around, definitely a little gem of a book that ought to have more readers.
1) Historical fiction with non-white POV (and oh, what a nice change that is) 2) urban fantasy 3) a love story (but probably not a romance).
It's much less about vaudeville & movies than I would have guessed from its blurb, and all about these characters, their journey (literal and figurative), and the world they live in.
It's crazy well researched, but you probably wouldn't know that unless you happened to be reading something like The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration at the same time (which I was).
I was expecting something kind of like an answer to my problems with The Night Circus, which left me cold. Its not that, which is juts peachy. It could use a good editor in spots. But all around, definitely a little gem of a book that ought to have more readers.
November 14, 2017
This is the story of Redwood and Aidan (Wildfire) and it begins with an event that traumatizes them both for different reasons. They are different in a world that wants them not to be and through the years they gravitate towards each other for comfort and companionship. But this event helps to mold them into the adults they become because of their response to this event. Set in late 1800s through the early 1900s, we travel with Redwood and Aiden through the swamps of Georgia to the promise land of Chicago with it's minstrel and vaudeville shows. The beauty of this novel is the ways that what the reader thinks they know about the people and era are challenged and made real to the reader. We dig into the intertwined issues of race, gender, class, and performance during this era and it is made relevant to our current era. It is a must read for anyone interested in the complexities of how we navigate space and perform expected and personal identity.
June 23, 2016
This book is brilliant.
This book is thrilling and moving and full of new ideas and wisdom.
This book, named by lit. critic, Tansy Rayner Roberts, "one of the best fantasy novels of 2011," is totally unique. There is NOTHING like it out there.
Filled with fascinating characters, including a wonderfully large number of great African-American women characters, this book is a rollicking, heart-stopping adventure full of romance and magic and amazement.
It is one of those books you CAN'T put down - and when it is over, you mourn, wishing it would not end....
Read it, if you want a GREAT book to blow your mind...
This book is thrilling and moving and full of new ideas and wisdom.
This book, named by lit. critic, Tansy Rayner Roberts, "one of the best fantasy novels of 2011," is totally unique. There is NOTHING like it out there.
Filled with fascinating characters, including a wonderfully large number of great African-American women characters, this book is a rollicking, heart-stopping adventure full of romance and magic and amazement.
It is one of those books you CAN'T put down - and when it is over, you mourn, wishing it would not end....
Read it, if you want a GREAT book to blow your mind...
January 23, 2014
Crossing time, historical memory, and structures of race, gender, and society with seven-league boots, Hairston's remarkable novel is a thought-provoking pleasure for both Hairston admirers and those new to her work. Redwood, the smart, empathetic protagonist and Hairston's elegant prose carry the reader through an adventurous tale rich with historical and social complexity. Archivists, historians, librarians, blues enthusiasts and readers with related interests will find much to love in this book as Hairston grants early 20th-century historical and technological developments a life far beyond the ordinary. This imaginative novel engages the intellect, the imagination, and the heart.
April 13, 2013
Last year's Tiptree Award winner. Romance between a black woman and a biracial (white/Seminole) man which starts off in rural Georgia early in the twentieth century and ends up in Chicago. Lots of good stuff about race, class, sexuality; different approaches to building black success/maintaining black community in the US; the soul-killing effects of necessary complicity with white stereotypes of black and Native people in theatre and film; the importance of art and storytelling to surviving and thriving. Trigger warnings for lynching, rape, homophobia (characters, not author).
October 11, 2014
Such a rich and magnificent world. I don't know how Hairston made me feel that the early 1900s are familiar, but she did. Her style and characters reminded me of Zora Neale Hurtson, but the magic here might fit more into a book by Isabel Allende. Perhaps one of the best things to be said of any novel is that it felt both immersive and real, and so this one did. I enjoyed it very much and recommend it to wayward lovers, theater rats, and magical realism enthusiasts.
May 27, 2017
A magical journey through history. Loved the stories within the story, the songs, the performances, the films––all part of a glittering, spinning spectacle. Though this is NOT an easy book to read––there are horrifying scenes of cruelty and violence (cause that's the true history of the turn of the 20th century)––the characters never lose their spirit, and fight on to create their own strange, brilliant, beautiful worlds.
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