Gwendolyn didn’t set out to have an affair but she knew she was spending time with a married man. She found out because her beautiful drawing of her family, with another family in the background at kindergarten did not delight her parents as she expected instead, it had her father explaining the way of things to her. Bigamy is expensive The SecretĪt the age of five, in Kindergarten, Dana found out that her family was a secret. Your father has promised to sponsor your education,” she said. What I do remember is speculation about how the man could afford two families and two homes. I suspect each woman had her supporters and friends and life carried on. I don’t remember how the community responded since the women lived within 1km of each other.

I remember two families both being at church, and brawls between the women and children who shared a husband/father, in a predominantly Catholic community. I never felt comfortable with that even though I could see evidence of it in my community, growing up as a child in St. I remember my great-grandmother saying that men will be men and what matters is who has the ring on their finger. When all is said and done, who are the villains in this story and who are the heroes? This is harder to answer than I expect, and no one is exempt from heartbreak.

How does it affect your life if your family is a secret and what’s it like to live in the dark, unaware of who or what might be happening in your shadow? Jones explores race with a light touch, as a backdrop to the larger issues of sexuality and statutory rape, friendship, family, bigamy, adultery, and parenting. We see how the mothers grew up and that their coming of age experience impacts the way that they raise their daughters. This is really a coming of age story as each girl builds her identity from the experiences and templates of those around her. What would be the cost of the deceit and messiness of the characters and who would pay the price? I wanted to know how the worlds would collide and what would be the impact. Could the other side of him just be ordinary, with no special reason or motivation? What drives his choices? With only half the story, he’d come across as a caring, hard-working husband and father. The question that remains is James’ motivation. These two sisters grow up very differently, and from each of their stories, we get to build a more complete picture of the characters in this book.

We get to know each sister intimately, from multiple perspectives. Set in Atlanta, first Dana tells the story, then Chaurisse, before Dana closes it off. In Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones explores what it means to be a family.

Silver sparrow book review