Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
Some books are wonderful even though they don't have a great deal of plot, usually because the characters are so rich and real and interesting that you tag along through their day-to-day lives simply because you want to know and understand these people. Silver Sparrow is like this. If you must have car chases and wild romance and espionage, then you probably won't make it through the first half. But if you like to read a book about women and their relationships with each other - mothers, daughters, grandmothers, friends, neighbors, strangers - then you will meet some nearly real people in this book.
The basic plot outline is somewhat sensational at first glance. The book is divided into two sections, each narrated by one of James Witherspoon's two teenage daughters (set in Atlanta in the '80s mostly). Dana Lynn goes first because she's the daughter who knows about James' other family and other daughter. He's a bigamist, and Dana Lynn and her mother are his secret family. Chaurisse, in the second half of the book, is the legitimate daughter who, along with her mother, is completely in the dark about James' other life. Most of the book involves the two girls telling the stories of how their parents came to meet and marry and have a child, and then later, how the two daughters come to meet and the consequences. You know the author has done a beautiful job crafting believable people when no one is a hero and no one is a villain. I even thought at several points throughout the book that I would really love to read at least a short story told from the point of view of James and his foster brother Raleigh, the two main male characters in the book, because their perspectives and conversations would also be so interesting. Maybe I should email Tayari Jones and suggest it.
