Why did I love this book?
I never lived in the South, but both my parents migrated from Alabama to Chicago in the first half of the twentieth century. I'm an historian whose first professional work was as a journalist, so Time's Undoing hit me in all the tenderest places.
This moving work of historical fiction captured my heart and imagination with a series of deft snapshots that pinged between present-day Birmingham, Alabama and a dark chapter in the city's early twentieth-century past. Cheryl Head mines her own family history to deliver a searing account of unsolved murder and racial injustice. The contemporary thread of this novel follows a young journalist's attempt to uncover and right those buried wrongs.
1 author picked Time's Undoing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A searing and tender novel about a young Black journalist’s search for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, decades ago—inspired by the author’s own family history
Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, known as the “Magic City” for its booming steel industry, and while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city’s busy markets and vibrant nightlife, it’s also a stronghold for the Klan. And with…