If you enjoy Southern fiction, you should read Joshilyn Jackson. If you enjoy good storytelling, you should read Joshilyn Jackson. If you like your novels to have a side of social commentary, you should read Joshilyn Jackson.
Your takeaway should be this: read Joshilyn Jackson.
The Almost Sisters is the third book I’ve read by this author and it is her best work yet. From the first page, I sensed I was reading something special. Every so often I’d look up from the book and marvel over what I beheld. Jackson's writing simply sparkles and I appreciated her ability to delve into complicated issues without losing the narrative thread.
Leia, a white woman, learns she’s pregnant due to a one night stand while at Comic Con. She doesn’t know the name of the man she slept with but she does know he was African American. She is about to tell her family when life interferes, leading her moving temporarily back to Birchville to take care of her grandmother Birchie who is in the throes of dementia.
I don’t want to say a ton about the plot because the delight of reading this is the way the story unfolds. I will say this: I couldn’t wait to learn the Birch family secrets and see what would happen with Leia’s stepsister, as well as when Leia would share her pregnancy with her family. And of course I was dying to know the identity of Batman, Leia’s one night stand. I wanted to race through the pages as much as I wanted to savor them. That’s the beauty of a Joshilyn Jackson novel.
While not the central thrust of the novel, it reads as an ode to nerdiness. Leia is a comic book illustrator and comic lore abounds throughout the story, as well as nods to other parts of nerd culture. I’m not a comic book person but I really liked this part of Leia’s personality and the bond it created with Batman.
The Almost Sisters is a timely and important read for anyone who is white. Novels can serve as a wonderful entry point for the things we want to learn about or that we're trying to understand. We need to keep learning about and recognizing our attitudes about race and privilege.
Joshilyn Jackson has a way of bringing insight and nuance to complex issues and she never sacrifices the integrity of her storytelling. You're reading a great story, first and foremost, but don't be surprised if you find yourself reflecting on your own opinions and history with what happens to her characters. That's a big reason why I recommend her books so often.
The dynamics between Birchie, who is white, and her friend-now-caregiver Wattie, who is black, are worth noting. While Wattie's mother was Birchie's housekeeper growing up, the two women grew up together and in their old age, their lives intertwined even further, especially when Birchie's memory first started to slip. They are an enigma in a town that is segregated down to which church you go to. In fact, they take turns going to each other's churches. They are a united front. I wish we'd known about Birchie's relationship with other African Americans. Her friendship with Wattie was special but I'm not sure Birchie is more evolved than the other white families in town.
This is written from the perspective of a white woman. I’m curious how people of color will respond to this story or what the story would be like if it had been written by a woman of color. (Jackson wrote a wonderful piece about privilege, second chances, and racial identity.)
Birchville is a town like many others. There's only a couple of overtly racist characters. Most simply don't question "the way things have always been." Even once sides are drawn, there are plenty who don't want to get involved, to Leia's chagrin.
The Almost Sisters is a journey of understanding. Leia must confront the racism in her town and in her family in light of her baby. Her son will grow up in a world she doesn’t entirely recognize and she has to grapple with this truth. There were times when I could not believe what she hadn’t realized about her town and the racism her child might face. Yet her experience mirrors the layers of burgeoning understanding many white people experience, myself included. Leia is figuring things out and it is good to see this play out. All along the mystery surrounding her family unspools and leads to a revelation that undoes everything she knew to be true.
It is powerful. It is painful. It is real life.
This book would be a perfect pick for book clubs or to read with a friend. We need to talk about these things.
Highly recommended.
********
This novel made me think about my own experiences as a white woman when it comes to race and privilege.
There is no place exempt from racism. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, I observed enough to know the Civil Rights Movement hadn't fixed everything but it wasn’t until college that my eyes were opened to how far the blight of racism extended. As part of my introductory sociology class freshman year, we read Savage Inequalities about the state of the education system. I was horrified by the senseless disparities and as I went on to become a social worker, my horror over systemic racism only grew. Housing segregation in Chicago is among the worst in the country and it has far-reaching consequences.
Years later I moved to Nashville and I witnessed more overt racism, as well as the flinch of Confederate monuments and the flag. So much of what I saw and heard was subtle, in a way wholly different from the systemic racism in the Midwest.
I may not be from the South but I sure recognized it in Birchville and Leia’s family.
Here’s the thing. It’s easy to look at the South and decry its problems. It’s harder to look at my community in the Midwest and harder still to look within my heart. I don’t believe any white person can say they’re not racist. We may not intend to be racist but that is the legacy we’ve inherited and it takes work to root it out from ourselves and then take action and speak out against it where we live. Until we do that, that legacy will persist.
That's why it's important to read books exploring race and privilege. We can't afford not to. Not if we profess to care about those who are marginalized and oppressed.
Synopsis
With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality---the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.
Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.
It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy--an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.
Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.
Buy The Book Here:
HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Disclosure: I received an ARC from HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. Affiliate links included in this post.
