“Your first word was “mother,” and I think it will be the last one I say before they put me in the dirt.”
While I own An American Marriage, Kin (Knopf 2026)is my first Tayari Jones novel, and I must admit to being disappointed. I love Jones’s writing – it is familiar and welcoming, a rhythm to the storytelling that makes it positively captivating. And I love the characters and the settings. Arguably, I should have loved this book because I love the pieces. But I am disappointed.
Kin is the story of two “cradle friends,” Annie Kay and Vernice “Niecy” from Honeysuckle, Louisiana. (That cover is absolutely GORGEOUS.) Annie Kay’s mother abandoned her as a baby, and she is raised by her grandmother. Vernice’s mother is killed by her father when she is a baby, and she is raised by an aunt. The two motherless girls are best friends their whole lives, but they are very different individuals with very different paths.
Niecy heads to Spelman College in Atlanta in search of a better life and Annie heads to Memphis in search of her mama. The novel alternates their experiences, which are so vastly different. Despite these differences, or perhaps because they’ve known since the cradle they were born to walk different paths, their friendship remains intact and preserved in letters.
I liked Niecy. I think her storyline is interesting, but I loved Annie Kay and felt she carried the novel. I wish there had been more Annie Kay, and certainly more Annie and Niecy together. I felt positively cheated when Niecy went to Memphis, and we saw so little of it.
Despite being disappointed, I would still recommend it because there are a lot of phenomenal pieces here.
A Girl Named Tommi 