Looking back for my review of Greenidge’s debut from a few years ago, I find that it says in its fulsome entirety: “I don't get a whole host of motivations for why characters in this novel did what they did.” In her second novel, once again there is a main character whose actions and motivations tend to be rather opaque, but this time I found myself largely enjoying the journey. Certainly the lack of chimpanzees in this story helped (I’m an inveterate opponent of monkeys/chimps/apes in novels, from bitter experience…) but more than that this one has an interesting raison d'être.

Libertie is born in New York in the years approaching the Civil War to a mother who is a freeborn African-American doctor and part of the Underground Railroad. Her father died before she was born and she was named for his great wish, that black people in America would build their own flourishing country, free of America and its racial oppression. Libertie’s mother herself believes in standing firm in America and claiming their rightful part in it, and raises Libertie to follow in her footsteps of care and healing of others.

That’s about the first third of the novel, which is fairly good. The next third follows Libertie to an incipient HBCU to get her degree. This part dragged for me and I was losing interest, mirroring Libertie herself who had little interest in her courses. When the novel moves into its final third, I could at least appreciate however how this middle part sets up the last.

Libertie returns home, meets, and quickly marries a young man from Haiti who has come to study under her mother. They leave for Haiti, where Emmanuel has a dream similar to that of Libertie’s father, much to her mother’s despondent dismay.

Really, however, Libertie is flailing. She doesn’t want any of the roles assigned to her by others in their dreams - her mother’s dream of her being a doctor, Emmanuel’s dream of her being a helper by his side in his building up of Haiti. Unfortunately she doesn’t know what she DOES want either, other than being her own person, but she doesn’t know how to achieve that so does some rather unwise things. Which many of us can surely identify with if we recall our own youth!

Ultimately I think Greenidge is writing a novel about the struggle of African-American women to find their own freedom, their own liberty, to become all that they can be and wish to be. It’s a struggle not only with the world outside the African-American community but also within it. She’s used the frame of the historical novel and I enjoyed the touches this enabled, like learning about the 1863 NYC draft riots and learning some Haitian Kreyole. The novel ends on a surprising note, Libertie taking another somewhat drastic and perhaps unwise decision… or is it? The novel won’t tell us what comes from it, leaving us instead to consider what Libertie continues to flee from, and what she is searching for. ( )

What started out as an interesting historical fiction account of a black woman doctor as told by her daughter, ended up becoming a long, drawn-out, rebellious identity crisis that comes to a blunt and unsatisfying conclusion. The storytelling was there, but the plot tended to wander without ambition and no apparent objection. All the components needed to create a compelling narrative were there: fascinating characters, a time period ripe with potential, and an entire “lifetime” to play out on the page. Numerous experiences were glossed over that, if expounded upon, could have enriched the storyline, instead drawing out the more dull moments and adding miscellany that could have been omitted.

The synopsis held so much promise but did not deliver.

Algonquin Books gifted me an advanced copy of this book. The opinions are my own. ( )

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 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.) ( )

The time is pre and post Civil War. The settings are Brooklyn, NY and Haiti. Libertie is the free-born daughter of a homeopathic doctor, Cathy, also free-born. Libertie is raised by her very stern, widowed mother to follow in her footsteps. Although her mother loves her dearly, she feels afraid to express this openly. Libertie is sent to a college in the midwest to be trained as a doctor. She doesn't want to be a doctor, but has never felt free to tell her mother this. Instead, she quietly flunks out of college, goes home at the end of term, and doesn't tell her mother the truth. Instead, she falls for her mother's new assistant, Emmanuel, marries him and goes back to his homeland, Haiti, to live with him and his family. His father is a stern bishop who doesn't even acknowledge her, and his sister is "crazy." Libertie realizes that she has gotten herself into this life because she didn't dare to tell her mother that she had flunked out of college and didn't want to be a doctor.

Themes in this story are mothers and daughters, racism and colorism, that is, the prejudice some lighter-skinned blacks have against darker-skinned blacks. Libertie's mother is so light-skinned she could pass as white, while Libertie is dark-skinned.

It was an interesting story and a well written book, but I wish it had been longer. I feel like a lot happened in a few pages, and would have liked to live with these characters longer. The story ends quite abruptly with a decision Libertie makes. ( )

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Colorism

Born as a free black woman, Libertie Sampson has always helped her mother, Cathy, the only black woman physician in their Brooklyn Community, with her practice. But as Libertie gets older, she realizes her passion is not in medicine, like her mother’s dream has always been. Instead, she falls in love with music, and struggles to find out what exactly makes her happy.

I finished this book last night, and a small part of me is still thinking about Libertie and what the future holds for her. The themes in this book felt well researched: the differences of feminism and what being free means, mental illness, mother-daughter relationships, and colorism within the Black community.

The historical aspects of this novel were greatly researched as well. The lasting effects of slavery are still seen even to this day, but to see how freedom effected those who had just recently been emancipated had an impact on me.

Their bodies are here with us in emancipation, but their minds are not free.
How is it possible to become free when you do not even know who you are?

I also enjoyed the relationship between Libertie and her mother, Cathy. The pressure Libertie had to at first be everything her mother wanted her to be, but then deciding that’s not what she wanted… We are able to see the relationship through both Libertie’s eyes as well as her mother’s through her letters to her daughter.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and Greenidge’s writing. This was my first novel read by her and I am indeed impressed.

I would recommend this novel to those who not only like historical fiction, but also those who like reading about mother-daughter relationships as well. ( )