The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois by Honorée Jeffers follows the life of Ailey, the daughter of an accomplished doctor and a strict schoolteacher, raised in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. Growing up, she struggles with this duality, a battle for belonging that shapes her identity. On one side are her exacting parents and her imperious, light-skinned grandmother Nana Claire, to whom skin color is paramount. On the other, Ailey feels the pull of the “deep country” of her mother’s land-tending family, whose forebears endured the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow.
In Jeffers debut novel, she tackles issues of racism, classism, feminism and colorism. The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois is available today on www.blackbookstore.com
