It was a good reminder that literary prize lists can be a great way to stretch my reading and be introduced to new titles and authors.Memphis, the debut novel from Tara M. While I wasn’t initially that drawn to reading Memphis, I picked it up from my local library after it was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year and I’m glad I did. Stringfellow does any excellent job of creating unique characters who feel connected yet distinct, as well as guiding her readers through the various timelines that the book follows. Sometimes that is a role of violence and sometimes it is one of love and sometimes the two are mixed up together. Women and their relationships are at the heart of the story, but of course men play their role too. We have everything from World War II to 9/11. The book covers a lot of time from the early 20th century to the early 21st, covering three generations of women in the North family.

We witness the ways that a community comes together after tragedy, refusing again and again to simply be victims, even as violence tears through their streets. Salons where Black women are cared for in more ways than just hair. We have shared food and street barbecues. Memphis the city is at the heart of this novel, so clearly named, but more specifically, the Black neighbourhoods and streets of the city. Something powerful and something uniquely their’s. Here, Joan and her family attempt to overcome the dark memories they each have behind them and start something new. Memphis is the city where Miriam fell into a whirlwind romance and marriage with her husband, Jaxon, and the city she left behind when she followed him in his military career. This is the city where he was soon after lynched and murdered himself. This is where Miriam’s father became the first Black homicide detective in the city. This is where Miriam and August’s mother grew up, where she fell in love with and married her husband. Here they work to rebuild their life, living in the Black neighbourhood of Douglass. They move back into the house that Miriam’s father built, the house she grew up, and where Joan’s aunt August still lives. In 1995, Joan, her mother Miriam, and her younger sister Mya flee her father’s violent temper and return to their family home in Memphis.

Book memphis by tara stringfellow