Silver Sparrow - 5 stars > Likes and Comments

In my goal to read everything Tayari Jones has written, this is my third of her novels. It‘s also the third novel she’s written and I’ve given numbers 3, 4, and 5 each five stars. She’s just a great writer. This is the story of the two daughters of James Witherspoon, a bigamist in Atlanta in the 1960s and 70s. The legitimate daughter and her mother, Chaurisse and Laverne, respectively, enjoy a middle class life and know nothing about James’ bigamy. But the other family, Dana and her mother Gwen, are all too aware of the truth, their lower standard of living and second class status. Inevitably, Chaurisse and Dana meet and interact, although secrets are kept. Each girl has reasons to feel inferior to the other. As always, Jones’s character development is superb with the kind of complexities real people have and no one all good or bad. Even the bigamist is a loving father. We follow the girls through high school when most of the action takes place. At the end, when all is known and both girls are in their 30s, we meet them again briefly. My only complaint is that I wanted to know more of what happened to them in the intervening years – in other words, a longer book!

I picked up Kin from the library today. I've read American Marriage and rated it highly so it's good to hear her others are good as well.

Tayari Jones writes well, but I'm probably not going to read all of her books--it's exceedingly rare I do that. I liked this one better than An American Marriage--I liked that one at 3 stars. However, I don't enjoy books only for how well they are written. I agree that she excels in character development.