What a story. This is very much a typical Great American Novel of a young protagonist making it in the big city against the backdrop of various historical events. The only difference here is that our protagonist is a young black woman from the American South of Montgomery in the early 20th century, seeking to make her mark in Harlem. And what a difference that makes to the whole perspective of a typical GAN.

The book traces Dorine Davis' beginnings in Montgomery, to her second beginning during the Harlem Renaissance - her life, her loves, her family, the sacrifices she had had to make -, while not shying away from incorporating the racism that affected her everyday life. This was doubly interesting when I think of the GANs I've read set during a similar time period. How many of them have had to navigate through the complicated racial laws and etiquettes of the time, or even had to take notice of it at all?

Yet the story isn't going for a model "minority" who through sheer hard work achieves the American dream. Davis is most certainly no model minority and nor should she be. She makes bad decisions and her rag-to-riches story is certainly very morally grey. Perhaps weirdly, Davis' life reminded me of Theo's in Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch in an overly-engorged and opulent way.

For a book this heavily condensed, (over forty years in under 400 pages), the pacing is expectedly uneven (sometimes years pass within one paragraph) but never jarringly so and the large cast of characters all satsifyingly individually treated and explored. A great record of a life, especially that of a black woman, in America during the early 20th century. ( )