The Furrows

April 1, 2022

When Cassandra Williams is 12, her younger brother, Wayne, vanishes in a terrible accident; his body is never found, and her family crumbles as her father leaves to start another family and her mother begins an organization dedicated to missing children. Cassandra herself goes through life thinking that she sees her brother everywhere, finally meeting a man named Wayne who seems achingly familiar. Windham-Campbell/Caine Prize/Ronna Jaffe honoree Serpell (The Old Drift) offers a study of grief; as Cassandra says, "I don't want to tell you what happened; I want to tell you how it felt."

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 25, 2022
In the brilliant and impressionistic latest from Serpell (The Old Drift), a young woman traverses the trenches of grief that have shaped her life. Cassandra’s younger brother, Wayne, drowned at the beach when she was 12, and his body was never found. With the steadiness of water seeking its level, Serpell explores the parallel but distinct realities Cassandra and her parents inhabit, leading up to her postcollege years: she’s forever in therapy, her mother won’t admit Wayne has died, and her father leaves them to start a new life. Whenever Cassandra is asked to retell the story, she can’t make sense of it. In a breathtaking maneuver, Serpell resets the novel again and again, cycling through possible accidents that convey Cassandra’s shock: Wayne drowns, he’s hit by a car, he’s thrown from a carousel. Then, Cassandra meets an enigmatic man she seems to know is her brother by the light in his eyes. In a series of shocking twists, Serpell shatters comfortable ideas about grief and melds Cassandra’s glittering narrative shards into a searching, unforgettable story. It’s a considerable shift from the huge canvas of her previous work, and no less captivating. P.J. Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

September 15, 2022
"I don't want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt," says the protagonist of Serpell's (The Old Drift, 2019) impressive novel, which explores the manifestations and expressions of grief. Cassandra "Cee" Williams was 12 when her seven-year-old brother, Wayne, drowned near their family's Delaware summer house; his body was never found. Because she may have witnessed the tragedy (she blacked out after trying to save him), Cee must recount the exhausting, confusing experience again and again--to her distraught parents, police, and multiple therapists. As an adult, Cee, a mixed-race Black woman, works for the missing children's organization her mother founded in her refusal to accept Wayne's death. Cee's father has remarried. Being inside Cee's head as she imagines glimpsing Wayne in everyday locales can be disorienting, though this effectively evokes the complex mourning process. Then Cee meets a man who takes the plot in a surprising new direction. Employing language in creative ways and upending reader expectations, Serpell continues to expand the possibilities of what literature can accomplish.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2022
A woman reckons with her brother's loss in ways that blur reality and memory. Serpell's brilliant second novel--following The Old Drift (2019)--is initially narrated by Cassandra Williams, who recalls being 12 and trying to save her 7-year-old brother, Wayne, from drowning off the shore of a Delaware beach. Did Wayne die after she hauled him to the beach and then blacked out, or did he disappear? Her recollection is fuzzy, as is her entire identity. As the narrative progresses, Cassandra's mind moves forward, as she works for the missing children foundation her mother founded, and back, as she recalls the trauma that consumed her parents and herself. But more engrossingly, her mind also moves sideways, reprocessing and rewriting the moment in various ways. (Perhaps Wayne was struck by a car instead?) The second half of the novel is dedicated to the question of Wayne's possible survival, and the storytelling is engrossing on the plot level, featuring terrorist attacks, homelessness, identity theft, racial code-switching (Cassandra's mother is White and her father, Black), seduction--all of which Serpell is expert at capturing. But each drama she describes also speaks to the trauma Cassandra suffers, which makes the novel engrossing on a psychological level as well. It opens questions of how we define ourselves after loss, how broken families find closure, and the multiple painful emotions that spring out of the process. "I don't want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt," Cassandra says in the novel's first line, and repeatedly after, and Serpell means it. Rather than telling the story straight, the elliptical narrative keeps revisiting the wounds that a tragedy won't stop delivering. If The Old Drift was an epic effort to outdo Marquez and Rushdie, this slippery yet admirably controlled novel aspires to outdo Toni Morrison, and it earns the comparison. It's deeply worthy of rereading and debate. Stylistically refreshing and emotionally intense, cementing Serpell's place among the best writers going.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.