The Warmth of Other Suns

I read The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson for book club. The book description says, "In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970. Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World."

This was a great read. It was a LONG book (Amazon says 640 pages, but without references and such, it was more like 500-something), and the library didn't own the audiobook. So it was hard for me to finish it in time -- luckily I had two fairly open days the last two days before book club and read several hours each day to get it done. But it definitely was a book I'm really glad I read. It took me a bit to get into it and to get in the groove of each of the three stories, but I thought the author did a great job reminding us where we left off last time we were following each person in order to prevent confusion. The book is very eye-opening and just really helps the reader understand what it was like to live as a black person during those time periods. There was lots to discuss at book club, and I really think it was an important read even though it was long and not always 100% engaging like a fiction read (though sometimes it was!). There was a quote at the beginning of one of the chapters from James Baldwin that said, "I can conceive of no Negro native to this country who has not, by the age of puberty, been irreparably scarred by the conditions of his life....The wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive." I left this book inspired by the resiliency of the three people highlighted in the book and also just the race as a whole. Really glad I read this book.

Rating: * * (2/3 = Liked it)