The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

An Oprah’s Book Club Novel

De: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

Narrado por: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi

An instant New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today Bestseller • AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB SELECTION • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021 • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times • Time • Washington Post • Oprah Daily • People • Boston Globe • BookPage • Booklist • Kirkus • Atlanta Journal-Constitution • Chicago Public Library

Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel • Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction • Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction • Nominee for the NAACP Image Award

""Epic. . . . I was just enraptured by the lineage and the story of this modern African-American family. . . . I’ve never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me."" —Oprah Winfrey

The NAACP Image Award-winning poet makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.

Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.

To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

A must read

Such a powerful story - a story that depicts the suffering of African Americans particularly the woman so well it gives you chills. A story that is relatable stil in this day of how black woman are treated and the pain they feel. How they are told to suffer in silence and keep it moving. This book is now a favorite of mine and I can’t wait to ré listen again and again.

Excellent storytelling

A compelling book with so many relatable storylines. I listened to each chapter with anticipation of what was to come.

Magnificent!!!

I was completely engrossed! The weaving of how the history of the characters intersected was so creative. I loved this book…I highly recommend this book!!!

Absolutely Beautiful

This book is absolutely beautiful and perfect in all the right ways. You will not be disappointed.

not your vacation beach book...better than that!!

Very well written story. Despite its length it is very fictional/informative. Hard to put down.

this book was amazing

and now that's its done I'm sad. I feel like I knew the characters personally

An Important Story

I had a love/hate relationships with this book. While the story is so important to our national story, it was very long and, it felt, often unnecessarily so. While it is necessarily epic, it is unnecessarily explicit. While it's important to explore the long-term effects of child sexual abuse, repeated depictions of that abuse are unnecessary. While female sexuality and empowerment are important, repeated explicit encounters felt gratuitous and redundant. The book needed an editor. We could have given this important story and its characters their due of the book were, say, 2/3 its length.

Perfect

A beautiful, long and luscious story following the multigenerational blood line of an American family. I’m hungry for more!

Make the time

The content of slave stories and the weaving of time, requires focus and time. The book is well worth it. It’s an important and beautiful, while often heartbreaking, story.

I can’t believe how much I enjoyed this book!!!

The only thing I did NOT enjoy was the sad truth and honest depiction of everything. If I have African heritage it’s probably more connected to the Ostrich as I do enjoy hiding from reality.
This book deserves a listen for sure and everything about it is top notch. I’m a 55 year old white man thats 1/8 Native American from my Dad’s side. I was raised in the South with a racist mother. <~ not my choice. This book made me want to time travel back to grade school and apologize. My best friends up until fifth grade were black and my mom of course wouldn’t let them hang out. I definitely hung out after school with them and their families some and was always treated with kindness

Enough of me; this book is just excellent storytelling and I felt like I was part of the experience or had witnessed this but with obvious blinders. Thank you for opening my eyes in a new way. I enjoyed the history, the clarity, and the reality of the story. I hope it becomes a movie. I ended up adding the Color Purple to my library as well in order to expand my knowledge of this history which affects so much of my Life. I find myself missing the characters from this book or at least many of them. I know I’ll listen again and probably but the hardcover for two of my daughters. Well worth a listen if you enjoy history and reality.