Play Book Tag discussion

Isabel Wilkerson has chronicled the migration of African-Americans from the south to other parts of the US from 1915 to the 1970s, when millions of people left the south to escape Jim Crow and for a better life. Through this account, she follows the lives of three individuals who left in three different decades for three different locations and each with a different story, but she also includes sections on the overall change, bits from her life and those of her parents who were also part of this migration which give it a more personal touch. Since I did not grow up in the US, I have no idea how much of this migration is taught in American schools, but my impression was that it is little, if anything.

There is no question that Wilkerson writes beautifully and has done an enormous amount of research in part of the United States' history, including thousands of interviews. It's easy to see why she won a Pulitzer. So why not five stars? Basically it boils down to the fact that there were many times, particularly during the parts about the entire sweep of this time, where there was a lot of repetition; not just of facts, but it seemed like the exact same set of sentences. I am not sure if this was for literary effect, but during the part of this book that I listened to an audio there were times when I wondered if my CD player had acted up and had flipped back like the one in my last one had started to do. Even in print, I was not impressed with that repetition. I felt that she could have written a very powerful, brilliant book that was somewhat shorter.

I heard Wilkerson speak a couple of years ago and she was phenomenal! I enjoyed this book more than you, it was in my top 10 the year I read it, but hearing her talk about all of the other people she talked to but did not include in the book was amazing.

I think she said that she interviewed close to 100 people and did years of research to pull together this story. Her passion and connection to that part of history was clearly evident.

Considering I saw her on the lecture circuit five years after the book was published, I think her time and passion paid off!

It also made my favourites list... just last year, I think! 4.5 stars from me.

Nicole R wrote: "I heard Wilkerson speak a couple of years ago and she was phenomenal! I enjoyed this book more than you, it was in my top 10 the year I read it, but hearing her talk about all of the other people s..."

Yes, she did a great job overall, and I'm sure not everyone is bothered by the repetition (perhaps the audio exaggerated it for me or I read it too fast). I think the work behind it is brilliant and it would be great to hear her give a talk about it. I had chosen it because Tien suggested it when I was looking for a longer book for one of my Olympics reads (a temporary GR group) and I got it from the library without even bothering to see what it was about. I'm glad for that, since I might not have ever gotten around to reading it otherwise.