Book Review: ‘WEB Du Bois’ Love Songs’ by Honorée Fanonne


Georgia’s historical backdrop is where we met Ailey Pearl Garfield, the protagonist of “Love Songs.” As a young Black woman in the late 20th century, Ailey feels this sense of dual consciousness, not just as Du Bois imagined, but also about how gender is channeled in a Black body. Ailey divides her time between an urban place known simply as “The City” and Chicasetta, a rural town where she is known, loved and free. The novel transitions between the past and the present, with the “Song” sections telling the stories of Ailey’s ancestors and the episodes telling a present-day story through the eyes of Ailey and the women in her life.

Education, as befits a novel with Du Bois in its title, is a theme of the book. Ailey attends a predominantly Black high school followed by a predominantly white high school. He then studies at Routledge, a historically Black college where his family history goes deeper than he could imagine. Jeffers paints a nuanced and compelling portrait of HBCU life, both past and present. One of Ailey’s guides and champions, his beloved great-uncle Uncle Root, and one of Ailey’s ways to connect with his wealthy ancestors.

Class and colorism are constant tensions in the novel, and Jeffers deftly portrays a world of elite African Americans. Ailey’s grandmother Nana is so fair-skinned that she can sometimes be called white, and sometimes it is. Ailey comes to see how her grandmother hides the cruelty behind her Edith Wharton-style demeanor:

“Christmas morning, Nana came to our house in a fresh and flawless looking taxi, wearing the Chanel suit she had bought when my father and uncle were young, on a family trip to Paris. She handed me her purse and a plate of Creole cookies, then she ripped the ends of her gloves off like an actress in an old movie and criticized my outfit.

In Ailey’s upper-class world, illuminators of Black American history are not just figures in a history book. Jessie Redmon Fauset is a family friend. Uncle Root drinks “bug juice” with the great Zora Neale Hurston. Even WEB Du Bois shows up. “Love Songs” reminded me of a line from Beyoncé’s song “Black Parade” from time to time: “Ancestors on the wall. Let the ghosts chat.” Her grandmother wants him to become a doctor, but Ailey is destined to become a historian. In her world and in this book, history is everything—a legacy of secrets, lies, talents, betrayals, ambitions, successes, and possibilities.



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