Red at the Bone

This is the story of Iris, and of her parents and of her daughter. It's the story of Aubrey, the father of her daughter, and of his mother. This is a family saga and despite it being told sparely, it digs into the experiences and lives of the family over three generations with depth and compassion.

Iris grows up in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, nurtured by her solidly middle class parents. Her mother holds her own mother's memories of the Tulsa Massacre, when an entire community was destroyed and her father has worked hard to raise his family into the middle class. She's about to have her coming out party, when she becomes pregnant and that event never occurs. Within a few months, she goes from a girl with everything to look forward to, show more to the girl parents warn their children about. But her story doesn't end there, and while her path forward isn't easy, or without harm done, she perseveres.

Woodson's writing is beautiful. There isn't a single unnecessary word in this novel. She has a talent for bringing her characters to life in very few words and of making their experiences vivid to the reader. show less

This story follows several generations of a Black family. Melody, the youngest member of the family, is coming of age at 16. She is angry at her mother Iris, who was a teenage mother and then left Melody with her loving father. Iris's parents tried to provide the best opportunities for Iris, but were outraged at her teenage pregnancy.

The book examines how attitudes about family, sex, and respectability change over the generations. It depicts love between family members, and how that love sometimes manifests in hurtful ways. It explores generational trauma: the grandmother was an infant in Tulsa and bears scars from the Tulsa Massacre, and that trauma manifests in different ways for her daughter and granddaughter.

The book jumps around show more between characters and time places a lot, usually in the first person. With a less-skilled author, this would have been really confusing, but Woodson gives each character such a unique voice that it's not hard to follow what's happening. Woodson also packs a lot into a very short book: the book examines race, family, trauma, sexuality, responsibility, and a lot of other topics. show less

I'm having a lot of feelings about this one.

I loved it a lot.

The prose was so beautiful, evocative and decadent without being showy. It felt like Woodson was party to the full lives of this entire family, and just pulled these moments of emotion out for you to read and share. Not necessarily the most important moments of each life, but perhaps the most emotional, the ones that show the ways they loved each other, the bonds of between parent and child.

Red at the Bone is a lyrically written novel that swirls around three generations of a family. I loved that the timeline was fluid - there weren't clear flashbacks or chapter breaks that are in two different timelines. It just worked.

The book starts with Melody having a party for her 16th birthday. We quickly discover that her mother, Iris, had her at age 15 and Melody was largely raised by her grandparents and her teenage father, Aubrey. Nothing necessarily "happens" in a traditional sense of a plotted novel, but a lot is experienced and discovered. It's a good reminder that even close-knit families never reveal everything about their inner lives or their pasts on both ends of the generations - young and old.

This is a novel that is show more smart and gives a lot to think about, beautifully written, and has appealing characters. Definitely recommended if you haven't gotten to it yet. show less

The book opens with a party: Melody is sixteen, getting ready in her grandparents' brownstone, for an event that her mother, pregnant at fifteen, had not had herself.

Relationships between Melody, her mother Iris, her father Aubrey, and her grandparents are illuminated in the course of the novel which moves back and forth in time and each of the characters have a turn telling the reader his or her story. The result is a poignant, powerful exploration of two Black families living in Brooklyn, their histories, and the intricacies of their relationships. The spare prose, deceptively simple, conveys so much that I will have a lot to chew on long after I put the book down.

— "If he had taken the SATs, Iris knew he probably would have scored high enough to get into any school he'd chosen. But he was done. He was good. Some mornings he whistled softly. Iris didn't understand his happiness. How this was so absolutely enough for him."

While I didn't exactly take to the writing style, this was really lovely and warm and I teared up at many bits. Felt like this should have been a longer novel and I wouldn't mind if Woodson releases a sequel of sorts because I want to know more about Aubrey and Melody. I want to know how Iris and Melody navigated life after Aubrey. And what happened to Iris after falling in love with Jam. The ending was a little rushed, but everything else was just so lovely and filled with a show more deep affection for all the characters involved. show less

“Look how beautifully black we are. And as we dance, I am not Melody who is sixteen, I am not my parents’ once illegitimate daughter—I am a narrative, someone’s almost forgotten story. Remembered.”

“If this moment was a sentence, I’d be the period.”

This begins, as a coming of age story, with sixteen year old Melody, celebrating with her family in Brooklyn. Then the narrative shifts to different members of Melody's family, examining their own lives and decisions, good and bad, that helped develop them, into the people they became. The author explores a myriad amount of issues, like class, status, race, sex, parenthood and identity, perfectly folded into a tidy two hundred pages.
This is my third outing, by Woodson, and each show more one is a marvel of delicate prose, directing a loving spotlight on the African-American experience. show less