Kaitlyn Greenidge

Parents have dreams for their children. But we need to be careful to nurture our children's dreams even if, or perhaps more importantly when, they do not match the dreams we have for them. We can guide and suggest, but in the end, it is not our life to lead. It is our children's. This is hard to face under normal conditions but when there are many other extenuating circumstances, it must be that much harder. Kaitlyn Greenidge's second novel, Libertie, shows how hard it is for a child to go show more against her mother's dreams and expectations and reach for her own.

Set in Brooklyn and Haiti, this historical novel tells the story of Libertie, the dark skinned daughter of a light skinned, female, Black doctor who rejects her mother’s profession and instead marries and moves to Haiti. The story opens with Libertie watching as her mother saves an escaped enslaved man; at least physically she saves him. And young Libertie is awed by her mother's power but also horrified at the emotional cost, both to her mother and to the patient. As she eventually leaves home for medical school, she finds that she is drawn more to music than medicine, knowing that she is unwilling and unable to pay the emotional cost of healing, especially of failing to heal the whole person. She cannot and will not follow in her mother's footsteps, choosing instead a different path, one that will provide her with her own brand of heartache.

This is a novel of strong women. In fact, it is inspired by the first black, female doctor in the US and her daughter. Greenidge writes movingly of mother daughter dynamics at the tail end of the Civil War. She has drawn the realities of the time into the text seamlessly, richly detailing the community and the challenges facing women, and especially a dark skinned woman like Libertie in the time of Reconstruction. Place is beautifully evoked here although the vast differences in the Brooklyn setting and the Haiti setting make this feel a little like two different novels mashed together and the travel to Haiti turns the novel toward the gothic and atmospheric with hints of Jane Eyre. Libertie's search for independence is moving and the reader sees it from her own perspective through the first person narration. The novel is a bit slow moving and contemplative with a lot of story lines, not all of which get a full enough treatment. Over all though, this is a powerful look at the high cost of slavery, colorism, and liberation in a story about family relationships, both mother daughter and husband wife, and about freedom and becoming.

This is one of the books chosen for the Women's National Book Association Great Group Reads list for 2022. (And yes, I stole a line or two from the description on that page for my review but since I wrote those descriptions, I consider that fair game.) show less

Kaitlyn Greenidge's Libertie has its origins in the story of a Black, female doctor, working in a northern Black community during the civil war. Libertie doesn't, however, focus on this woman—or a fictional version of her. It focuses, instead, on Libertie, the imagined daughter of such a women: young, angry, intelligent, unwilling to give herself over to anyone's expectations, living a life that offers her freedoms unusual for a girl of her time but also places significant limitations on show more her.

The characters of Libertie and her physician mother are interesting, but what really drove the book for me were the conflicts and challenges facing free Blacks during this period. In what ways are Blacks born into freedom able to understand the lives and experiences of Blacks born into slavery? How does color—degree of lightness or darkness—affect the opportunities open to individuals? Is it a betrayal if Libertie's mother also accepts white women as patients and hangs a curtain dividing the waiting room to keep the two groups of women separate? In what ways do men fail to see them limitations placed on women at that time, even men who believe they're committed to an equal partnership? These questions also extend beyond the border of the U.S. What are the relative values of staying in the U.S. to fight for rights or moving elsewhere—to Haiti or Liberia—to build a Black nation? And to what extent would such a nation offer real equality to its different castes of citizens?

I began reading Libertie for the narrative, but what really propelled me through the novel were the questions it forced me to reckon with. One can read Libertie as a semi-romantic historical novel, but one can also read it as an invitation to imagine and weigh the social conflicts and challenges of another time.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher; the opinions are my own. show less

Libertie follows the story of the eponymous character from her childhood in a rural community near New York City, where she grows up free, but still under the restrictions of what it was to be Black in the United States. Her mother is a doctor, and often cares for people who have managed to escape slavery, not always successfully. Although she is respected, her stand-offish personality make it hard for others to get close to her, and that includes her daughter, Libertie, who struggles to show more find her place in the world, even as the Civil War ends and, theoretically at least, there are more opportunities available to her. She can't fit into the space her mother wants her to occupy, but when she takes a different path, things don't become easier or clearer.

This is a coming-of-age story with a protagonist we don't usually see in this kind of novel; Libertie flails about trying to find a purpose and she's not always sympathetic as she does so. Greenidge also plays with our expectations for historical novels by omitting white people, who exist on the periphery and always as an untrustworthy and potentially dangerous force. But while Greenidge is doing some interesting things in her clearly well-researched novel, it felt a little saggy in places, like it wasn't sure where it was going. Greenidge is a promising writer and the things she choses to write about are always interesting, but she is still developing her craft. I'm eager to read what she writes next. show less

"Their need was monstrous."

It wasn't only the barn cats that frightened Libertie by their demands and needs. Every one seemed to want something from her.

First, her mother, a free, black, homeopathic doctor who determined that Libertie would follow into her career. Her mother was deemed a saint, caring for the whole world, secreting slaves into freedom, and healing black and white alike.

Libertie was overwhelmed by the diseases of the body, but it was the diseases of the mind that most show more troubled her soul, including the unrequited love of a newly freed slave, and the broken people who gathered in a back room, free but never safe from the trauma of their past. Her mother's cures could not heal broken spirits.

Libertie's light-skinned mother was allowed to touch the white women's bodies, but they flinched at Libertie's touch. She was Black Girl. How could her mother minister to the people who hated them for the war? How could her mother ignore history for the sake of money?

During the Civil War, the women gathered to create a hospital, and Libertie felt the power of their communal energy. She learned from their example how to scheme to right a wrong world.The world felt full of possibilities and Libertie marveled over her choices.

Libertie was sent to college where she first experienced the world outside of her mother. She hoped to forge her own path. She hated the medical coursework, and her classmates were 'colorstruck' against her.

Music saved her; hearing two girls singing, she presents herself as their pupil. Singing, her soul soared. But she discovers the girls have a special relationship that can never include her.

Returning home, Libertie meets the recent medical school graduate working under her mother, the light skinned, straight haired, Haitian, Emmanuel. He weaves stories of a beautiful country ruled by Negroes, a place where blacks can be truly free.

Emmanuel enchants Libertie with his stories of the Haitian African gods still worshiped, although attacked by his Bishop father. He proclaims to believe in 'companionate marriage,' a modern understanding. She accepts his marriage proposal. She had failed as a daughter, as a medical student; perhaps she would find herself as a wife and mother.

Haiti is beautiful, but is not the paradise she had imagined. Emmanuel's family resents her, and she discovers a double standard that her husband is complicit in maintaining.

In her quest to discover who she is, to find real freedom, Libertie finds herself boxed in by expectations and limited choices, until she finds the courage to take control of her destiny.

Every generation must find its own way, every woman pushes against the societal, familial, and political forces that bind her. Libertie's story is set in the past, but her story will be recognized by young women today. What does it mean to forge your own path, to be free to be yourself? How do we discover who we really are in a world of demands?

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. show less