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Silver Sparrow Kindle Edition
“A love story . . . Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy . . . Jones’s skill for wry understatement never wavers.”
—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Silver Sparrow will break your heart before you even know it. Tayari Jones has written a novel filled with characters I’ll never forget. This is a book I’ll read more than once.”
—Judy Blume
With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist," author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man's deception, a family's complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle.
Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode. This is the third stunning novel from an author deemed "one of the most important writers of her generation" (the Atlanta Journal Constitution).
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAlgonquin Books
- Publication dateMay 8, 2012
- File size5089 KB
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review
“Populating this absorbing novel is a vivid cast of characters . . . Jones writes dialogue that is realistic and sparkling, with an intuitive sense of how much to reveal and when . . . One of literature’s most intriguing extended families.” —The Washington Post
“That Jones offers no pat answers is the secret sauce spicing Silver Sparrow. The prose goes down so compulsively that it might be easy to miss the heart of the story. She shines a light on a particular disenfranchised group, the children who grow up in second families.” —The Denver Post
“An amazing, amazing read.”
—Jennifer Weiner on NBC’s Today show
“Jones gives us permission to love all of the novel’s women, though they are flawed and often refuse to love each other. That’s a recipe for great book club discussions.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Tayari Jones has taken Atlanta for her literary terroir, and like many of our finest novelists, she gives readers a sense of place in a deeply observed way. But more than that, Jones has created in her main characters tour guides of that region: honest, hurt, observant and compelling young women whose voices cannot be ignored . . . Impossible to put down until you find out how these sisters will discover their own versions of family.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A love story . . . Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy . . . Jones’s skill for wry understatement never wavers.” —O: The Oprah Magazine
Review
About the Author
Rosalyn Coleman Williams is the director of the award-winning short film Allergic to Nuts. She is a 2003 Fox Fellow Award winner and was nominated for a 2006 Barrymore Award for Best Actress for her performance in Intimate Apparel at the Philadelphia Theater Company. Her film credits include Vanilla Sky, Our Song, and Music of the Heart. Rosalyn is a member of New York Women in Film and Television, the East Coast Writers Collective, and a lifetime member of the Actors Studio.
Tayari Jones is the author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, and Silver Sparrow. She holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa. She serves on the MFA faculty at Rutgers.
Heather Alicia Simms is an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator and actress. Her filmography includes Broken Flowers, Flutter Kick, Shock Act, Kingscounty, Head of State, Third Watch, and others. She also provided voice acting for the video game Red Dead Revolver.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
SILVER SPARROW
a novel By Tayari JonesAlgonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Copyright © 2011 Tayari JonesAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-56512-990-0
Chapter One
The SecretMy father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist. He was already married ten years when he first clamped eyes on my mother. In 1968, she was working at the gift- wrap counter at Davison's downtown when my father asked her to wrap the carving knife he had bought his wife for their wedding anniversary. Mother said she knew that something wasn't right between a man and a woman when the gift was a blade. I said that maybe it means there was a kind of trust between them. I love my mother, but we tend to see things a little bit differently. The point is that James's marriage was never hidden from us. James is what I call him. His other daughter, Chaurisse, the one who grew up in the house with him, she calls him Daddy, even now.
When most people think of bigamy, if they think of it at all, they imagine some primitive practice taking place on the pages of National Geographic. In Atlanta, we remember one sect of the back-to-Africa movement that used to run bakeries in the West End. Some people said it was a cult, others called it a cultural movement. Whatever it was, it involved four wives for each husband. The bakeries have since closed down, but sometimes we still see the women, resplendent in white, trailing six humble paces behind their mutual husband. Even in Baptist churches, ushers keep smelling salts on the ready for the new widow confronted at the wake by the other grieving widow and her stair-step kids. Undertakers and judges know that it happens all the time, and not just between religious fanatics, traveling salesmen, handsome sociopaths, and desperate women.
It's a shame that there isn't a true name for a woman like my mother, Gwendolyn. My father, James, is a bigamist. That is what he is. Laverne is his wife. She found him first and my mother has always respected the other woman's squatter's rights. But was my mother his wife, too? She has legal documents and even a single Polaroid proving that she stood with James Alexander Witherspoon Junior in front of a judge just over the state line in Alabama. However, to call her only his "wife" doesn't really explain the full complexity of her position.
There are other terms, I know, and when she is tipsy, angry, or sad, Mother uses them to describe herself: concubine, whore, mistress, consort. There are just so many, and none are fair. And there are nasty words, too, for a person like me, the child of a person like her, but these words were not allowed in the air of our home. "You are his daughter. End of story." If this was ever true it was in the first four months of my life, before Chaurisse, his legitimate daughter, was born. My mother would curse at hearing me use that word, legitimate, but if she could hear the other word that formed in my head, she would close herself in her bedroom and cry. In my mind, Chaurisse is his real daughter. With wives, it only matters who gets there first. With daughters, the situation is a bit more complicated.
It matters what you called things. Surveil was my mother's word. If he knew, James would probably say spy, but that is too sinister. We didn't do damage to anyone but ourselves as we trailed Chaurisse and Laverne while they wound their way through their easy lives. I had always imagined that we would eventually be asked to explain ourselves, to press words forward in our own defense. On that day, my mother would be called upon to do the talking. She is gifted with language and is able to layer difficult details in such a way that the result is smooth as water. She is a magician who can make the whole world feel like a dizzy illusion. The truth is a coin she pulls from behind your ear.
Maybe mine was not a blissful girlhood. But is anyone's? Even people whose parents are happily married to each other and no one else, even these people have their share of unhappiness. They spend plenty of time nursing old slights, rehashing squabbles. So you see, I have something in common with the whole world.
Mother didn't ruin my childhood or anyone's marriage. She is a good person. She prepared me. Life, you see, is all about knowing things. That is why my mother and I shouldn't be pitied. Yes, we have suffered, but we never doubted that we enjoyed at least one peculiar advantage when it came to what really mattered: I knew about Chaurisse; she didn't know about me. My mother knew about Laverne, but Laverne was under the impression that hers was an ordinary life. We never lost track of that basic and fundamental fact.
When did I first discover that although I was an only child, my father was not my father and mine alone? I really can't say. It's something that I've known for as long as I've known that I had a father. I can only say for sure when I learned that this type of double-duty daddy wasn't ordinary.
I was about five years old, in kindergarten, when the art teacher, Miss Russell, asked us to draw pictures of our families. While all the other children scribbled with their crayons or soft-leaded pencils, I used a blue-ink pen and drew James, Chaurisse, and Laverne. In the background was Raleigh, my father's best friend, the only person we knew from his other life. I drew him with the crayon labeled "Flesh" because he is really light- skinned. This was years and years ago, but I still remember. I hung a necklace around the wife's neck. I gave the girl a big smile, stuffed with square teeth. Near the left margin, I drew my mother and me standing by ourselves. With a marker, I blacked in Mother's long hair and curving lashes. On my own face, I drew only a pair of wide eyes. Above, a friendly sun winked at all six of us.
The art teacher approached me from behind. "Now, who are these people you've drawn so beautifully?"
Charmed, I smiled up at her. "My family. My daddy has two wifes and two girls."
Cocking her head, she said, "I see."
I didn't think much more about it. I was still enjoying the memory of the way she pronounced beautifully. To this day, when I hear anyone say that word, I feel loved. At the end of the month, I brought all of my drawings home in a cardboard folder. James opened up his wallet, which he kept plump with two-dollar bills to reward me for my schoolwork. I saved the portrait, my masterpiece, for last, being as it was so beautifully drawn and everything.
My father picked the page up from the table and held it close to his face like he was looking for a coded message. Mother stood behind me, crossed her arms over my chest, and bent to place a kiss on the top of my head. "It's okay," she said.
"Did you tell your teacher who was in the picture?" James said.
I nodded slowly, the whole time thinking that I probably should lie, although I wasn't quite sure why.
"James," Mother said, "let's not make a molehill into a mountain. She's just a child."
"Gwen," he said, "this is important. Don't look so scared. I'm not going to take her out behind the woodshed." Then he chuckled, but my mother didn't laugh.
"All she did was draw a picture. Kids draw pictures."
"Go on in the kitchen, Gwen," James said. "Let me talk to my daughter."
My mother said, "Why can't I stay in here? She's my daughter, too."
"You are with her all the time. You tell me I don't spend enough time talking to her. So now let me talk."
Mother hesitated and then released me. "She's just a little kid, James. She doesn't even know the ins and outs yet."
"Trust me," James said.
She left the room, but I don't know that she trusted him not to say something that would leave me wounded and broken-winged for life. I could see it in her face. When she was upset she moved her jaw around invisible gum. At night, I could hear her in her room, grinding her teeth in her sleep. The sound was like gravel under car wheels.
"Dana, come here." James was wearing a navy chauffeur's uniform. His hat must have been in the car, but I could see the ridged mark across his forehead where the hatband usually rested. "Come closer," he said.
I hesitated, looking to the space in the doorway where Mother had disappeared.
"Dana," he said, "you're not afraid of me, are you? you're not scared of your own father, are you?"
His voice sounded mournful, but I took it as a dare. "No, sir," I said, taking a bold step forward.
"Don't call me sir, Dana. I'm not your boss. When you say that, it makes me feel like an overseer."
I shrugged. Mother told me that I should always call him sir. With a sudden motion, he reached out for me and lifted me up on his lap. He spoke to me with both of our faces looking outward, so I couldn't see his expression.
"Dana, I can't have you making drawings like the one you made for your art class. I can't have you doing things like that. What goes on in this house between your mother and me is grown people's business. I love you. You are my baby girl, and I love you, and I love your mama. But what we do in this house has to be a secret, okay?"
"I didn't even draw this house."
James sighed and bounced me on his lap a little bit. "What happens in my life, in my world, doesn't have anything to do with you. You can't tell your teacher that your daddy has another wife. You can't tell your teacher that my name is James Witherspoon. Atlanta ain't nothing but a country town, and everyone knows everybody."
"Your other wife and your other girl is a secret?" I asked him.
He put me down from his lap, so we could look each other in the face. "No. You've got it the wrong way around. Dana, you are the one that's a secret."
Then he patted me on the head and tugged one of my braids. With a wink he pulled out his billfold and separated three two-dollar bills from the stack. He handed them over to me and I clamped them in my palm.
"Aren't you going to put them in your pocket?"
"Yes, sir."
And for once, he didn't tell me not to call him that.
James took me by the hand and we walked down the hallway to the kitchen for dinner. I closed my eyes on the short walk because I didn't like the wallpaper in the hallway. It was beige with a burgundy pattern. When it had started peeling at the edges, I was accused of picking at the seams. I denied it over and over again, but Mother reported me to James on his weekly visit. He took off his belt and swatted me around the legs and up on my backside, which seemed to satisfy something in my mother.
In the kitchen my mother placed the bowls and plates on the glass table in silence. She wore her favorite apron that James brought back from New Orleans. On the front was a drawing of a crawfish holding a spatula aloft and a caption: DON'T MAKE ME POISON YOUR FOOD! James took his place at the head of the table and polished the water spots from his fork with his napkin. "I didn't lay a hand on her; I didn't even raise my voice. Did I?"
"No, sir." And this was entirely the truth, but I felt different than I had just a few minutes before when I'd pulled my drawing out of its sleeve. My skin stayed the same while this difference snuck in through a pore and attached itself to whatever brittle part forms my center. You are the secret. He'd said it with a smile, touching the tip of my nose with the pad of his finger.
My mother came around and picked me up under my arms and sat me on the stack of phone books in my chair. She kissed my cheek and fixed a plate with salmon croquettes, a spoon of green beans, and corn.
"Are you okay?"
I nodded.
James ate his meal, spooning honey onto a dinner roll when my mother said there would be no dessert. He drank a big glass of Coke.
"Don't eat too much," my mother said. "You'll have to eat again in a little while."
"I'm always happy to eat your food, Gwen. I'm always happy to sit at your table."
* * *
I don't know how I decided that my missing teeth were the problem, but I devised a plan to slide a folded piece of paper behind my top teeth to camouflage the pink space in the center of my smile. I was inspired by James, actually, who once told me how he put cardboard in his shoes when he was little to make up for the holes in the soles. The paper was soggy and the blue lines ran with my saliva.
Mother caught me in the middle of this process. She walked into my room and lay across my twin bed with its purple checked spread. She liked to do this, just lie across my bed while I played with my toys or colored in my notebooks, watching me like I was a television show. She always smelled good, like flowery perfume, and sometimes like my father's cigarettes.
"What are you doing, Petunia?"
"Don't call me Petunia," I said, partially because I didn't like the name and partially because I wanted to see if I could talk with the paper in my mouth. "Petunia is the name of a pig."
"Petunia is a flower," my mother said. "A pretty one."
"It's Porky Pig's girlfriend."
"That's meant to be a joke, a pretty name for a pig, you see?"
"A joke is supposed to be funny."
"It is funny. You are just in a bad mood. What're you doing with the paper?"
"I'm trying to put my teeth back," I said, while trying to rearrange the sodden wad.
"How come?"
This seemed obvious as I took in my own reflection along with my mother's in the narrow mirror attached to the top of my chest of drawers. Of course James wanted to keep me a secret. Who would love a girl with a gaping pink hole in the middle of her mouth? none of the other children in my kindergarten reading circle looked like I did. Surely my mother could understand this. She spent half an hour each night squinting at her skin before a magnifying mirror, applying swipes of heavy creams from Mary Kay. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, "I am improving my appearance. Wives can afford to let themselves go. Concubines must be vigilant."
Recalling it now, I know that she must have been drinking. Although I can't remember the moment so well, I know that just outside the frame was her glass of Asti Spumante, golden and busy with bubbles.
"I am improving my appearance." I hoped she would smile.
"Your appearance is perfect, Dana. You're five; you have beautiful skin, shiny eyes, and pretty hair."
"But no teeth," I said.
"You're a little girl. You don't need teeth."
"Yes, I do," I said quietly. "Yes, I do."
"Why? To eat corn on the cob? your teeth will grow back. There is lots of corn in your future, I promise."
"I want to be like that other girl," I said finally.
Mother had been lying across my bed, like a goddess on a chaise lounge, but when I said that she snapped up. "What other girl?"
"James's other girl."
"You can say her name," Mother said.
I shook my head. "Can't."
"Yes, you can. Just say it. Her name is Chaurisse."
"Stop it," I said, afraid that just saying my sister's name would unleash some terrible magic the way that saying "Bloody Mary" while staring into a pan of water would turn the liquid red and thick.
Mother rose from the bed and got down on her knees so we were the same height. As she pressed her hands down on my shoulders, traces of cigarette smoke lingered in her tumbly hair. I reached out for it.
"Her name is Chaurisse," my mother said again. "She's a little girl, just like you are."
"Please stop saying it," I begged her. "Stop it before something happens."
My mother hugged me to her chest. "What did your daddy say to you the other day? Tell me what he said."
"Nothing," I whispered.
"Dana, you can't lie to me, okay? I tell you everything and you tell me everything. That's the only way we can pull this off, baby. We have to keep the information moving between us." She shook me a little bit. Not enough to scare me, just enough to get my attention.
"He said I was a secret."
My mother pulled me into a close hug, crisscrossing her arms across my back and letting her hair hang around me like a magic curtain. I will never forget the smell of her hugs.
"That motherfucker," she said. "I love him, but I might have to kill him one day."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from SILVER SPARROWby Tayari Jones Copyright © 2011 by Tayari Jones. Excerpted by permission of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B008041R6Y
- Publisher : Algonquin Books (May 8, 2012)
- Publication date : May 8, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 5089 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 353 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #50,775 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #48 in Black & African American Literary Fiction
- #315 in Contemporary Literary Fiction
- #1,007 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Tayari Jones is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage (Algonquin Books, February 2018). Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, and Callaloo. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Silver Sparrow was named a #1 Indie Next Pick by booksellers in 2011, and the NEA added it to its Big Read Library of classics in 2016. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. An Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University, she is spending the 2017-18 academic year as the Shearing Fellow for Distinguished Writers at the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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The author says this book is a “love letter” to her half-sibling, to her half-sister that she shares her father with. She explicitly states that her father was not bigamous. Yet concerning the number of single mother households in America today, there are many families that have been torn asunder or affected by bigamy in more ways than one.
This book has deeply affected me, and although several readers of this book have posted reviews saying this book is pointless and that it was “disappointing” to them because it didn’t really progress from the sensation that bigamy is, or that the storyline didn’t lead to anywhere, are clearly missing the point here. The point is to show the effect of big on their lives. The subject of bigamy is so hard to write about. It’s a stagnant situation that reeks, can never fully be corrected without hurting anyone and it never really leads anywhere. It’s like being stuck in a rut. If you’ve ever had to make a difficult choice in whom to love, and live your life according to it, you’d probably relate. Love in real life, is not the Corinthians kind of love, it is not patient and kind. Love in real life is heartbreak.
Although the ending of the book was a bit dramatic (and most real life bigamous stories don’t always end like that), the concept of a bigamous marriage as depicted in this book really hits home. So, this book was a tear-jerker, I didn’t just cry but it drew a very deep part of my soul that I didn’t know existed. It was a part of me that had remained walled off, it was numb, cold and unfeeling, and this story by Tayari Jones gave it life, emotion and a heartbeat.
I loved this book. Tayari writes with great feeling and sensitivity, something that she is able to expose us to. I could sense the pain, joy and the heartbreak of the author, and the emotional proclivity it probably took to imagine and write something of this magnitude. I also love the author’s way with words, and the way she transports us to not just read but live that feeling. I would’ve loved more of Dana and Chaurisse. In going through what they went through, and persevered, Dana and Gwen are both strong characters to me and I admire them. Dana was the most likeable character in this book to me, after which her mother Gwen was a close second. And they were constantly singled out. I would’ve loved to read more from their perspective, I think there need to be more mother-daughter books that explore similar topics, it would make for a great feminist book, one that I’d love to read. Another thing I’d have loved to read of would be the probable love story, of what could’ve been if Gwen had given Rayleigh a chance. I think that was happiness but a lot of women who have been singled out tend to reject happiness and follow the path of pain, and loneliness.
I regard Tayari Jones as the black equivalent of Elizabeth Gilbert. Tayari literally made me “Eat, Pray, and Love” with this book of hers: a tribute to her siblings. It is very sweet and yet so dark in the most mysterious of ways, it points to human infallibility, that strength lies within and the fact that blood runs thicker than water... regardless of whom we choose to call family, and our toes to them despite our circumstance, and ourselves.
I read this book months ago on kindle but I am ordering the paperback version on Amazon just so I can reread it again, and feel every bit of emotion course through my bones again, as I cozy up on my couch with a cup of hot chai and my thoughts. I may order pizza and sniffle into my pillow as I course through the book with raw emotions, and I might just yet call my friend and cry about the book if I feel like.
Or I might find renewed strength just like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, “I’ll think of it tomorrow” and pretend that I will deal with the harshness of the world tomorrow, while feeling the desolation of today.
Tayari, I have only read a few pages of American Marriage but I read Silver Sparrow because it was so easy to read and relatable to me, I’m sure you have touched many sisters lives by writing this and putting bits of your own life story into this, if any. Love, Z
SPOILER-FREE, of course: I appreciate the format of the story and the way Tayari tells an entire tale from all the different perspectives that she did, even though the book was split into only ”Dana” and “Chaurisse” parts. The plot, the character development/revelations, the beautiful style of prose and her particular choice of words—whew! ALL OF IT! It gave me life! It killed me inside! It did ALL of this and more! But...unfortunately, the only thing that’s stopping me from giving this book a full 5-stars is...the EPILOGUE. I swear, I don’t know if it’s just me but...once again, I feel like the Epilogue made the story fall absolutely FLAT, just like in AAM. Now, the falling flat wasn’t as severe as in AAM because THAT ending was an 100% obnoxious letdown. Here though, I can see more of a completion of the tale, but...I feel like it was odd how Tayari only told an epilogue from Dana’s perspective rather than both her AND Chaurisse. Though some blanks got filled in, I still would have liked a bit more of what happened and how it happened to both Dana and Chaurisse. It felt like it simultaneously filled in blanks, but left so much out if that makes sense. All in all, I’m satisfied with this story. 🤷🏾♀️
Top reviews from other countries
The story is told from the perspectives of two girls, Dana and Chaurisse, and the book is split in half to tell both their sides to the story which I really liked as a structure.
Dana and Chaurisse are the daughters of a bigamist and while Dana knows about her father's other family, Chaurisse does not.
The book depicts both of the girl's experiences and feelings really well and makes for a very believable story. Nothing in this book is idealised and instead it explores the complexities of the situation and the emotional impact it has on both the families.