Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
This new release by the author of Hulu-adapted Black Cake follows an affluent Black family with generations-long ties to New England. Part of the Freemans’ storied legacy involves a historic artifact crafted by an enslaved man, and history meets present day when the clay jar is shattered and Ebby Freeman’s older brother is murdered. The story follows multiple perspectives, including Ebby’s parents but it’s Ebby, the sole witness to her brother’s death when she was a child, who provides the throughline. As if her life isn’t already deeply in the public eye for all the wrong reasons, she gets jilted on her wedding day and that cherry on top of the icing sends her overseas somewhere she can nurse wounds old and new without wealthy New England watching and whispering.
When I think of a perfect book club book, I think of a book that is compelling with wide appeal, lots of layers to peel back, and the potential for interesting, if divisive, conversation and debate. This checks all of those boxes. I like messy characters in my fiction and there are a few here who invite ample commentary. Hand me a glass of wine and brace yourself for my trash-talk soliloquy about Ebby’s ex-fiancé. Maybe someone else would rebut with a more sympathetic perspective and I would have them sit in their wrongness and be wrong…but Wilkerson’s characters are many-sided rather than villainous or heroic. Beyond the mess of it all, Good Dirt speaks on deeper subjects: racism, slavery, the biases and prejudices not even wealth, success, and legacy can shield you from when you’re Black in America. I also learned something new about the history of pottery by enslaved African Americans (which you can read a little about here). At the end of the day, I loved reading about the Freemans—I had fun and some laughs, I was deeply moved—and I was rooting for them to find a path to healing.
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