Redwood Court (Reese's Book Club)

By: DéLana R. A. Dameron

Narrated by: Ashley J. Hobbs, Robin Miles, De'Onna Prince, Aaron Goodson, Dominic Hoffman

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “[A] richly textured and deeply moving debut” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice) about one unforgettable Southern Black family and its youngest daughter’s coming of age in the 1990s.

“A triumph . . . Redwood Court is storytelling at its best: tender, vivid, and richly complicated.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone

“Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales. You have all these stories inside you: all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You write ’em in your books and show everyone who we are.”

So begins award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel, Redwood Court. The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her: her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.

With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.

©2024 DéLana R. A. Dameron (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Dameron is a prizewinning poet and it shows: She does a beautiful job weaving in local vernacular and casting a fresh gaze on an engaging, though flawed, cast of characters. . . . This novel delivers the kind of choral experience that I have savored in books as disparate as James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge.”—Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake, for The New York Times Book Review

“Redwood Court exquisitely paints a portrait of Black Southern life, and in her debut novel, DéLana R.A. Dameron meticulously orchestrates a leading cast of characters that leap right off of the pages of this book! In this coming-of-age novel, readers get a glimpse of life through the eyes of the family’s youngest daughter. The writing is nuanced, succinct, and brilliant.”—Essence

“Redwood Court is big in every way. It’s a paean, a praise-song to this family, and others like them, spreading love and goodwill and community in a society that still sorely needs love and goodwill.”—Southern Review of Books

A+ performance, So So Story

To me, the story felt very disjointed. Like a collection of shorty stories that just ended, each leaving you with questions. Some stories were great and heartfelt, others could have been left out in order to extend the good ones.

Relatable

There are so many aspects of this story that I could relate to my own family in so many ways. I found it so relatable. It was wonderful to see references to the time period you were writing about through references to music, patterns of living and things that most of us thought and did during our childhoods. This story was easy to relate to and I was influenced by the characters to think about influential people in my own life who I admire. Well done!

Wonderful family story!

I loved the writing. This book is challenging, and thoughtful, and lovely. I enjoyed reading it.

Home Sweet Home

Coming from Columbia myself, this story felt so familiar. The characters are so fantastic and their interactions are wonderfully realistic. It felt like I was sitting around the kitchen table myself. Well done.

All of the people

I listened to this on tape. There are so many characters, I suggest making a genealogy chart at the very beginning, using the information given in chapter 1. It will give you a visual reference as each character takes their part in the story.

Audio made the book

I got this book due to it being a Reese’s book club pick. It was way too expensive to buy the physical copy so got it on audible since I had a credit. So glad I did! The story was just ok. Like a memoir that is fiction. But the audio made this book great. I would have been bored reading it by the physical copy. Not sure point of book honestly. Just one family who loved on redwood court. Some beautiful moments but then some boring ones. Overall it was ok

Hard to follow.

Hard to follow and not really a cohesive story line. Most of my bookclub members were a little confused.