Sandrine’s Reviews > The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois > Status Update

“I know the story will be over soon. That I will wake up with a question. And then another, but the question is what I have wanted. The question is the point. The question is my breath.“

Almost 800 pages and still not enough. What a beautiful encapsulation of Black and Indigenous history on the land that is now the usa. A true treasure, thank you Ms Honorée.

She turned the ancient heater higher, but she was still cold, so she went back into the living room and pulled out a blanket from inside the armoire. In the bath-room, she piled towels on the fuzzy mat, sat on top, and wrapped the blanket around herself. She didn't feel anything with the first rock, so she smoked another, and then another until her supply was gone. But she wasn’t frightened.

heavy…

Samuel did not feel morally bankrupt. To the contrary, he believed that he had been seduced by the child he'd assaulted, that the little girl had flaunted her beauty before him and that as a man, he had been helpless. Her Negro status was even more to blame, for hadn't his father taught him that Negroes were descended from Cain?

:(

I caught my breath and when I exhaled, I began to weep. I thought of the little slave girls, and of the little girl I had been. The secrets I kept about what had happened to me, so no one would think I was dirty. I thought of the pain of my ancestors who'd been slaves, perhaps even sold in this very place. I thought of it all, and I put my hands over my face to hide my shame, but there was an arm around my shoulder.