The release date for the English version of 'Memphis' by
Tara M. Stringfellow is Mar 2023. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
Featured today as a National Bestseller and Book Club Pick, read with Jenna A captivating first book that follows the journey of a Southern Black family over three generations and the realization by one daughter that she has the ability to alter her family's history.
A lyrical anthem dedicated to Black women.— Book Review, New York Times
From Joan's passionate heart to her grandma Hazel's unwavering perseverance, I fell in love with this family. For many years to come, Tara Stringfellow will be a writer to watch.—Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone novelist and New York Times bestselling author
• ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE The Boston Globe, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, and PopSugar • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
Summer 1995: Joan, then ten years old, runs away from her father's volatile anger with her mother and younger sister, taking sanctuary at her mother's family's Memphis house. The family's trajectory has been impacted by violence on previous occasions. This magnificent home was constructed by Joan's grandpa fifty years ago in the storied Black neighborhood of Douglass. However, he was killed a few days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. While Joan struggles to adjust to her new life, she finds that family secrets have a bigger impact than she had anticipated.
As she gets older, Joan turns to painting as a way to cope; she creates paintings of Memphis's neighborhoods. One of her themes is their mysterious neighbor Miss Dawn, who says she knows something about curses and whose historical tales enable Joan to realize that her enthusiasm, her vivid imagination, and her unwavering faith are really the carrying on of a long-standing matrilineal tradition. Joan starts to realize that the only tool she needs for healing is her paintbrush—her mother, her mother's mother, and the women before them endured, made difficult decisions, and put their ambitions on wait so that Joan's life wouldn't have to be characterized by grief and rage.
Memphis, which spans more than 70 years and features a chorus of ephemeral voices that sway over time, creates a lasting image of inheritance by highlighting the richness of what is passed on in families as well as both cruelty and justice, forgiveness and faith, sacrifice and love.