Book name- KIN

Author- Tayari Jones

Published by: Oneworld, Price: Rs 650

Tayari Jones’s Kin is a tale of friendship that is thicker than blood, rooted in a shared cradle and in motherlessness. It brings together the lives of Vernice and Annie, who are distinct in a dozen different ways but united in their quest for belonging. Throughout the book, they look for an anchor to the world — a mother-shaped one — that had been rudely snatched away by life almost as soon as they breathed their first.

Reared in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, in the 1950s, the two girls are determined to leave the nest — Vernice goes to college to expand her horizons while Annie goes on a mission to find her elusive mother. Both craft a life for themselves, with friends, lovers, and people they care about. But their bond is from a time before words, before personalities, or intentions. They remain irrevocably connected in spirit and soul.

Jones’s use of the belief, “home dirt… can pull you back”, is fascinating. At first, ‘home dirt’ brings back Aunt Irene to Honeysuckle; she has to relocate in order to raise Vernice after her parents die. Here, this seems like a regular bit of superstition. But then, Vernice uses it to ensure that Annie returns to her, turning ‘home dirt’ into a symbol of kinship.

Beyond the interpersonal relationships, Kin is a powerful study in the sociopolitical realities of the era. It demonstrates how absolute segregation felt, almost like two worlds existing parallelly — separate but distinctly unequal. Any contact between the two results in conflict — violence or scandal. But what is even more interesting is the glimpse into how social mobility, class divisions, differences in beliefs, and prejudices play out within the Black world itself; how skin colour, after all, is not as uniting a force as one would hope.

Still, one cannot help but feel that the girls deserved better, no matter how fantastical that may be. Traditionally, a tragic beginning warrants a happier ending. However, life is rarely so neat.