Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton
Published by Dialogue Books, 2019
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
I’m glad to say I rounded off my reading of the Women’s Prize longlist with a strong contender. Remembered opens in 1910, as a mother rushes to her son’s hospital bed. Charged with committing a serious crime, and on the brink of death, she vows to tell him the truth of his origins, so that he may ‘find his way home’ in peace. We then travel back to the 1840s, and ultimately follow three generations of this family, showing us how we ended up at this tragic tableau, and highlighting repetitions throughout the timeline of the African-American experience.
The novel is a lot more brutal than I expected, this being a story of slavery, and the struggle that many black people faced to rebuild and find acceptance in the wake of Emancipation. Violence, deprivation, and cruelty are a near constant presence, but that’s not to say the book lacks hope or beauty. On the contrary, the finding of family, and the preservation of joy in the darkest of times are both major threads that run throughout.
The narrative voice feels very authentic. Though the informal approach to grammar takes a little getting used to for those unaccustomed, once you find the rhythm of the prose, it flows beautifully, helping to set the book in its rightful time and place. The characters themselves are richly drawn, and I found myself caring deeply about their fate.
There is an element of magical realism; our heroine able to see and communicate with the ghost of her sister. I sometimes struggle with this kind of thing in an otherwise raw and realistic story, but in this instance, I thought it was handled wonderfully. Not only do the sisters’ scenes together deliver equal parts pathos and snark, but the ghost’s presence serves as a clever symbol of the book’s main theme: the importance of facing up to the past, lest it continue to haunt us. Indeed, there are undeniable parallels between the historical events described, and every generation leading up to the world we live in now. Battle-Felton has written a powerful yet sensitive rallying call, telling the real story between the headlines that so often went untold. In it, she urges us to remember those who have suffered. Together, we can make sure no one need suffer as they did again.
***
If you’d like to read Remembered, you can pick up a copy from Book Depository by clicking here. If you’ve already read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Great review! I am so glad you liked this one, since it’s one of the books on the list that I have heard very little about before!
Thank you! Same here, I hadn’t even heard of it before it was longlisted, and it still has less than 100 ratings on Goodreads! It’d be nice to see more people picking it up soon, as I think it’s a very good book.
I missed you. 🙂
Long time no see! I hope you’re well 😊
CONGRATS ON FINISHING THE LIST! I can’t wait for your predictions/wrap-up post(s) about this project. I think I’ll also finish on this book – I’ll probably read Bottled Goods tomorrow and then finish Swan Song before I pick up Remembered even if it kills me. Anyway, great review, I am looking forward to this!
Thank you! I’m hoping to put something together in the next few days 📚 I’m rooting for you to finish before the shortlist! And I’m excited to see how you get on with this. It wasn’t what I expected going in, but I thought it was a solid book, and a worthy addition to the longlist.
A book about slavery and a ghost immediately makes me think of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which is also set during Reformation. Nice job finishing all the books in the running for the Women’s Prize! How many total did you read?
Ooh, I think that one’s on my TBR! If not, I’ll be sure to add it.
Thanks! There are 16 on the longlist in total. I’d already read 2 when it was announced (though I only finished one of them the day before, lol), so I’ve pretty much read 15 of them back-to-back. It was one of those bookish bucket list things I wanted to do at least once, so I’m glad to say I’ve done it! 📚
I see! So you don’t do it every year, or plan to do it every year. I’m sure it took up a lot of your reading time that maybe you wanted to devote to other books, too.
This is the first time I’ve done it! I loved the experience, and swapping opinions with a group of bookish friends also making their way through the list has been really fun. But yes, it’s taken up pretty much all of my reading time over the past 2 months, so the sense of freedom and choice on my shelves is pretty overwhelming! 😋📚 Have you ever made your way through a longlist?
A longlist, no. Read the Valdemar stories is a 35-book commitment, so I know how you feel, though!
That is quite the undertaking!
Congratulations on finishing the longlist! You really left us all in the dust. I am glad you enjoyed the last one you finished!
I am a bit apprehensive because I am not so good with books that deal with injustice but I do love magical realism, so I am hoping this will work for me.
Thank you! There are definitely some difficult scenes to get through in this one, but I hope you manage to get on with it.
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