The way Tayari Jones writes about her hometown – Atlanta, and the South, shows her immense love for the region. Social class and privilege more layers of complexity to the story.

Silver Sparrow is a really complicated 1980’s story about family, secrets and sisterhood. How he treated Dana, especially at the end when she reveals to readers her last encounter with him was terrible. There is absolutely no way that anyone can make me sympathize with such a wicked, heartless, confused, selfish man, ei! It’s so interesting how James actually thinks he’s a noble man, full of integrity because he honored both women by marrying them but he didn’t treat both families equally at all. There are no winners or losers in this story… oh wait – James is definitely a loser in this story. But since I read this while in my 30’s, I somewhat appreciate Gwen’s decisions and understand her. If I had read this book when I was in my teens or 20’s, I would have judged Gwen and Dana so harshly. Raleigh’s past had my heart sooooo heavy, whew! Even though we are introduced to Miss Bunny briefly, I really loved her! What a woman. The way James and Laverne (Chaurisse’s parents) met and settled down was so different from how James and Gwen (Dana’s parents) met and ‘settled down’. I did love how with each of the girls’ chapters, we are taken through their parents’ past. Also, some bits of the story felt overly dramatic and almost unrealistic when we were approaching the climax of the nonsense James orchestrated. But as we transitioned into Chaurisse’s story, I started to not really care about her self-deprecating, under-achieving demeanor. Since the book starts off with Dana’s chapters, I really wanted to give this book 5 stars. I enjoyed Dana’s chapters way more than Chaurisse’s chapters. There is a special place in hell for this James Witherspoon character, with Raleigh (James’ right-hand man) following right after him. This is the third stunning novel from an author deemed “one of the most important writers of her generation” (the Atlanta Journal Constitution). It is a relationship destined to explode. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families-the public one and the secret one. With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist,” author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle.

Silver sparrow book review