10 books like Salvage the Bones

A fascinating exploration into the lives of three women ignored by history, the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr, James Baldwin, and Malcolm X. By tracing the intellectual, political, and emotional strands of each woman’s life, Anna Malaika Tubbs uncovers hidden complexities within black motherhood that illuminate our understanding of the past while also shedding light on the overlooked contributions of black women today.

Although Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield are only old childhood friends, their relationship has intense sister vibes. Each woman’s mix of jealousy and curiosity about the other’s life, the latent homoerotic desire that serves as an undercurrent for so much of the rising action, a suspected affair, and the explosive ending to Clare’s ruse all illustrate the kind of sibling rivalry I love to explore in my critical as well as my creative work. Not to mention, one of my favorite literary flexes of all time occurs near the end when Irene’s plucky friend Felise has to check a white man who has the audacity to yell the word “nigger” at a house party filled with Black people. It is a moment, as is the entire book. 

Song of Solomon is the book that made me fall in love with writing.

I have read it many times throughout my life, and each time I do, I come away with new insights and a sense of awe at the masterful storytelling. The hero of this journey is Milkman Dead, a Black man living in Detroit, Michigan during the Harlem Renaissance and early Civil Rights movement.

He becomes both the hero and the anti-hero as he embarks on a journey to the South to find his inheritance and the truth about his family. One of my favorite parts about this book is how it mixes so many genres together.

In many ways, it follows the structure of a classic Greek-style Epic, but it has elements of Historical Fiction and even Magical Realism. This is truly my favorite book ever written. 

The story starts with Janie Crawford as a young teenager, forced into marriage to an old farmer she has no desire for.

It’s ok, though, because he doesn’t particularly want her either. He just wants help on the farm. Janie runs off and marries a politically ambitious man seeking a trophy wife. They move to a small town and he forbids Janie from associating with the “common folk.”

I love this story because Janie starts out strong with an independent streak, and grows even stronger throughout the story. I will note that the dialect takes some getting used to, but it’s a great story.

The Secret Life of Bees is a tender coming-of-age story revealing how nature is a guiding light for the 14-year-old protagonist in despair over her ‘ruined’ childhood. 

She is trapped at home with a cruel father after her mother died ten years before in a domestic violence tragedy.

Nature guides her into another life, but first she and her Nanny, must escape the ‘dark hive’ of misogyny and racial prejudice of their old home before landing anew by a series of synchronicities into the care of three sisters who own the Black Madonna Honey bee business.

They find good mothering, living harmoniously in community, and affective communication similar to beehives. The protagonist becomes truthful and wise as she discovers friendship and a voice of her own. 

Girlhood was published while I was in edits and though I bought the book, I couldn’t risk reading it. The subject matter was too close to my own. What if I wanted to add or (gasp) rewrite? I’m glad I waited. Febos’ stunning essays perfectly encapsulate the confusion of adolescent girlhood, the mixed messages—from adults, from our own bodies—and the traps that lay in wait.My favorite, “The Mirror Test,” contains lines that crackle such as: “Before it carried any sexual connotation, the word slut was a term for a slovenly woman… A slut was a careless girl, hands sunk haphazardly into the dough…—eyes cast out the window, mouth humming a song, always thinking of something else. Oh was I ever a messy child. A real slut in the making.”

The Mars Room is the bar in San Francisco where Romy Hall used to give lap dances. It’s also the catalyst for the event that landed her in a high-security women’s prison serving two consecutive life sentences far away from her seven-year-old son. In addition to the sky-high stakes and Kushner’s incisive prose, what thrilled me about this novel is the way it’s told, on dual tracks. The present is Romy’s experience of incarceration, and the past is a slow reveal of everything that led up to her imprisonment. The tension mounts and mounts until finally we learn the circumstances of her crime, infuriating evidence of the ways society sets women up to fail. 

Atticus and Scout Finch are OG father-daughter #goals, so it’s only fitting that any list of novels about father and daughters start here. Lawyer Atticus Finch teaches young Scout about empathy, the multiple perspectives to a story, and standing up for what’s right. His advice resonates with me decades after I first read this classic in middle school: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Atticus’ compassionate and measuredly wise parenting style, coupled with young Scout’s wide-eyed coming of age and discovery of uncomfortable social blights, like racism and injustice in our criminal justice system, make this literary duo an unforgettable pair. 

At the heart of this book is an important message: creativity cannot and should not be suppressed.

I’m a creative person, and if I’m not writing, I’m making things with my hands—paper crafts, water coloring, miniatures, cross stitch—you name it.

In this book, Bernadette gives up her joy of creativity because of relentless criticism, lack of appreciation for her work, and self-imposed responsibilities—until she discovers it’s the work that matters.

There is so much to love about this interesting, thought-provoking book. Bernadette is an awesome character—a brilliant architect whose early success has stopped her cold.

And without her creativity, she’s a mess. A very funny, well-meaning mess. Until she finds it again.

The Cicada Tree is a wonderful Southern Gothic magical realism mash-up leavened with humor and illuminating reflections on the human condition told in voices that drip with authentic Southernisms. Analeise Newell, this novel’s protagonist, is a complex, not-as-kind-as-she-knows-she-should-be eleven-year-old who drinks whiskey and is a piano prodigy. Her close friendship with Etta Mae, a budding coloratura soprano, sheds light on accepted racial inequities in the Deep South of the 1950s, building to (in the author’s words) a “chain of cataclysmic events with life-altering consequences-all of it unfolding to the maddening whir of a cicada song.”