Overview
āThis is a truly character-driven novel that explores how people define themselves, the creation of family and home, and the importance of memory and language. . . . Fans of historical epics wonāt be able to put this book down.āāHistorical Novel Society
āEmotionally satisfying. . . . A remarkable character portrait.āāPublishers Weekly
The author of The Secret Women tells the story of a brave and enduring woman as indomitable as Ernest Gainesā legendary Miss Jane Pittman, in a breathtaking novel that combines the epic romance and adventure of Outlander, the sweeping drama of Roots, and the haunting historical power of Barracoon.
Things Past Telling is a remarkable historical epic that charts one unforgettable womanās journey across an ocean of years as vast as the Atlantic that will forever separate her from her homeland.Ā
Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Graceāa.k.a āMomma Graceā will live a long, wondrous life marked by hardship, oppression, opportunity, and love. Though she will be āgiftedā various names, her birth name is known to her alone. Over the course of 100-plus years, she survives capture, enslavement by several property owners, the Atlantic crossing when she is only eleven years of age, and a brief stint as a pirateās ward, acting as both a spy and a translator.Ā
Maryam learns midwifery from a Caribbean-born wise woman, whose ācraftā combines curated techniques and medicines from African, Indigenous, and European women. Those midwifery skills allow her to sometimes transcend the racial and class barriers of her enslavement, as she walks the razorās edge trying to balance the lives and health of her own people with the cruel economic mandates of the slave holders, who view infants born in bondage not as flesh-and-blood children but as investment property.Ā
Throughout her triumphant and tumultuous life Maryam gains and loses her homeland, her family, her culture, her husband, her lovers, and her children. Yet as the decades pass, this tenacious woman never loses her sense of self.Ā Ā
Inspired by a 112-year-old woman the author discovered in an 1870 U.S. Federal census report for Ohio, loosely based on the authorās real-life female ancestors, spanning more than a hundred years, from the mid-eighteen-century to the end of Americaās Civil War, and spanning across the globe, from what is now southern Nigeria to the islands of the Caribbean to North America and the land bordering the Ohio River, Things Past Telling is a breathtaking story of a past that lives on in all of us, and a life that encompasses the bestāand worstāof our humanity.
This book title, Things Past Telling (A Novel) - 9780063097087, ISBN: 9780063097087, by Sheila Williams, published by HarperCollins (February 21, 2023) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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