Everyman

A Novel

By: M Shelly Conner

Narrated by: Janina Edwards

Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Eve Mann arrives in Ideal, Georgia, in 1972 looking for answers about the mother who died giving her life. A mother named Mercy. A mother who for all of Eve’s 22 years has been a mystery and a quest. Eve’s search for her mother, and the father she never knew, is a mission to discover her identity, her name, her people, and her home.

Eve’s questions and longing launch a multigenerational story that sprawls back to the turn of the 20th century, settles into the soil of the South, the blood and souls of Black folk making love and life and fleeing in a Great Migration into the savage embrace of the North.

Eve is a young woman coming of age in Chicago against the backdrop of the twin fires and fury of the civil rights and Black Power movements - a time when everything and everyone, it seems, longs to be made anew.

At the core of this story are the various meanings of love - how we love and, most of all, whom we love. everyman is peopled by rebellious Black women straining against the yoke of convention and designated identities, explorers announcing their determination to be and to be free. There is Nelle, Eve’s best friend and heart, who claims her right both to love women and to always love Eve as a sister and friend.

Brother Lee Roy, professor and mentor, gives Eve the tools for her genealogical search while turning away from his own bitter harvest of family secrets. Mama Ann, the aunt who has raised Eve and knows everything about Mercy, offers Eve a silence that she defines as protection and care. But it is James and Geneva, two strangers whom Eve meets in Ideal, who plumb the depths of their own hurt and reconciliations to finally give Eve the gift of her past, a reimagined present, and finally, her name.

©2021 M Shelly Conner (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

Critic reviews

Travel+Leisure Magazine Pick

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Parade Magazine Pick

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Frolic Pick

Great book

Being from Chicago and now living in Georgia, I find a lot I can relate to.

Enjoyable Listening

I enjoyed listening to this title. You had to pay close attention as there were alot of quick changes from year to year. Changes in the characters were quick as well. The narration was good I enjoyed her voice.

Beautifully written and preformed

An eye opening perspective. Following Eve through her quest to find her family’s story revealed a point of view of the reality I have been told of but could never truly understand.
I know the history, but the author placed me right in the middle of an experience.

Riveting

This book with its historical twist and turns will take you a journey that will keep you enthralled to the very end. The narrator does a wonderful job of telling the story.

Engaging!

I loved it! A story very well written. this is great storytelling from beginning to end.

Touching Storyline

This was such a great story! I highly recommend this title to all readers! A

beautiful

Loved it! Heartbreaking and poetically written with a satisfying ending. Would emphatically recommend this listen.

Relevant Read

The storyline/story opened my mind into a different perspective about relationships. At first I was a bit skeptical about the book. Especially when there is past family secrets. This book delves inside of the truly untold family secrets. I would recommend this book and be prepared to really handle the facts.

Really made me think

Unravels the mysteries about the parents and grandparents Eve never knew, showcasing juke joints, numbers runners, northern ghettos, and civil rights marches. The author put me in the heads of characters as they discovered some friends & family are LGBTQ, or that people they thought were good or bad did quite the reverse. Made me appreciate different perspectives. I loved Janina Edwards’ southern dialects! Author’s style is reminiscent of Toni Morrison & Alice Walker.

Great history

love this narrative of a black story! the author intertwines the past and present superbly!