Homegoing (2016) belongs to an honored tradition of African-American fiction, a generation by generation narrative tracing a family’s life from a moment a few centuries distant in West Africa, through the horrors of capture and slavery (and often encompassing moments of both resistance and collusion), through some form of emancipation and into the 20th century. Yaa Gyasi adds a twist, in that she follows two families, one that remains in West Africa (Ghana) and one that survives the middle passage into North America.
The chapters alternate by location, with generational parallels. This structure makes Homegoing more a series of inter-related short stories than a continuous narrative–although towards the end of the novel, individuals persist more and more, becoming parents and grand-parents of the chapters’ main characters (this happened in Some Sing, Some Cry as well and is more a function of the longer lifespans and interconnected nature of 20th/21st century life than some narrative inconsistency).
Perhaps the most impactful moments of Homegoing are of the tragic variety: several individuals exist on the edge of mental illness, several others struggle with addiction of different types, and Gyasi’s skill at creating empathy for those characters and moments is impressive. There are some thematic elements that survive across the narratives as well, one of which is a necklace passed from generation to generation. Originally salvaged from a fire, the totem asks the joined questions of what survives and what is passed on, and, in the final scene (which also unites the two narrative lines), the answers are, as they should be, ambiguous.
It’s hard not to compare Homegoing with The Underground Railroad, given the close proximity of both their publication and my reading of them: I think Gyasi’s novel is more successful from a purely literary perspective, but Colson, in contrast, adds some new and distinctive elements to the conversation. Both are worth your time.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
Stick with this kind of regulated structure. If I were attempting this, some characters would become novellas, others would struggle to hold my interest for more than a dozen pages. There is a rhythm and a regularity to these kind of novels that I think demonstrate a mastery of craft on the part of the author.