Some Sing, Some Cry (2010) is a novel by Ntozake Shange and her sister (and playwright) Ifa Bayeza that belongs to a long tradition of explorations of the African-American experience through the eyes of a single family (in this case, the Mayfields). They are a musical family, and as such comparisons to Richard Powers‘ The Time of our Singing may come to mind, but the book has more in common with Alex Haley‘s Roots. Despite its centrality to the narrative, Some Sing, Some Cry is not a book about music. It’s a book about the struggles of being dark-skinned in the Americas, and about the ways those struggles are (and are not) able to be overcome.
It’s a magnificent book, especially in its early going, when the Mayfields emerge from the rural South, splintering into groups that find themselves in New York City and, initially via the military, overseas. The time periods are evoked with care and with love, and the rhythms of life–from the differing creoles, dialects, and slang employed by the different characters to the details of the settings to the historical events that weave in and out of their lives–are portrayed with grace, wit, and veracity.
The characters are compelling, and–the matriarchs especially–are strong enough to stay embedded in your memory, and their power is sufficient to overwhelm the last 100 pages or so, where coincidence plays a bit too strong of a role in the resolution of several plot lines and the scenes over the past 40 years or so feel much more rushed than the earlier material.
Some Sing, Some Cry deserves to be read widely, deserves to be thought about with care and compassion, and deserves a place among the minor classics of American literature.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
Create a sweeping narrative that maintains character and consistency across over a century of realistically detailed historical narrative.