Overview
The critically acclaimed author of Black Ice, Pride, and The Price of a Child offers this deeply moving story of a family’s challenge to reunite, understand the truth about its past, and secure its legacy.
If Sons, Then Heirs sheds light on a uniquely American, largely untold story of African American land ownership, the outmigration from the South, racial violence, and the consequences of past decisions on present realities.
After World War II, Needham family members migrated north to Philadelphia from South Carolina, leaving behind the tragic injustice surrounding the violent death of their patriarch, King. His devoted widow, Selma, remains on the old home place. Over the years, she raises King’s children, including his great-grandson, Rayne, on whom falls the responsibility to bring the family together to save the family land and mend the rift between him and his mother.
Rayne and the other vividly drawn characters face challenges big and small that mirror the experiences of families everywhere. But in the masterful storytelling of Lorene Cary, so distinct and unique are their voices that they will live in the minds of readers long after the last page is read. If Sons, Then Heirs is a tour de force that explores the power of family secrets, bonds, and love. This gripping novel is certain to be on the must-read lists of all who enjoy brilliantly rendered stories of family, love, and American history.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Cary tells a complex story of family, race, and the challenges of reconciling the present with a persistent past. Alonzo Rayne was raised in South Carolina by his great-grandmother, Selma. Now he owns a construction business in Philadelphia and lives with Lillie, a single mom, and her seven-year-old son, Khalil. As the story begins, Khalil accompanies Alonzo to South Carolina where Alonzo urges the aging Selma to sell her land so they can pay for her long-term care. But she hasn't owned the land since King, her husband, died almost 50 years ago; Selma was King's second wife, not an heir, and this unforeseen fact, combined with ancient, racist inheritance laws, makes for a sticky situation. And Alonzo's mother suddenly wanting to reconnect after years of abandonment further complicates matters; her marriage to the white man she met after abandoning her son turned her life around. Finally, Alonzo's investigation into his great-grandmother's land puts him on a collision course with the men who brought about his great-grandfather's violent end. Cary (Black Ice) pairs generations of loving, and loyal individuals with social history, making for an absorbing and moving tale. (May)From the Publisher
“Engaging. . . . Cary creates characters with such full-bodied life that their predicaments remain vivid.” —The New York Times Book ReviewLibrary Journal
Issues of love, responsibility, property, race, and redemption abound in Cary's (The Price of a Child; Pride) latest novel. A young Jewell Thompson abandons her son, Lonnie, to Nana Selma, who raises the seven-year-old boy on the family farm in South Carolina, "heir property" that Selma has kept for years by dint of backbreaking labor and stubbornness. At issue is Selma's strong love of the land and how it can be maintained in a dysfunctional, scattered family. Alternating between the present and the past, the novel is weakened by slow pacing, flat dialog, and sundry legal discussions. Both the major and minor players become dull in the details. VERDICT Those familiar with Cary's excellent 1991 memoir, Black Ice, may be tempted to give this novel a chance, but the book never really finds its rhythm and ultimately disappoints.—Sally Harrison, Ocean Cty. Lib., Waretown, NJKirkus Reviews
Multiple generations of an extended African-American clan grapple with racism, unfair land laws and each other in this multifaceted family saga.
Family may never be easy to maintain, but the Needhams have more than their share of complications. More than 20 years ago,Jewell (Needham) Thompson put her son on a southbound train and moved on to an affluent life with a wealthy white husband who helps her pass as white. That son, Alonzo Rayne, now 30, also came north to Philadelphia, but travels back to South Carolina to care for the grandmother who raised him—and to help keep up the old farm that she can no longer maintain. On this latest trip, he takes his girlfriend's 7-year-old son Khalil, who has recently started to call him "Dad," and a load of questions about whether he can commit to the boy and his mother. But the tentative reconnection of mother and son—prompted by the loving girlfriend who hopes to heal Rayne's family and her own—brings up a violent and hate-filled past. That legacy, along with outdated laws that may cost the Needhams their land, form the backbone of a complex tale of realistic adults trying to forge a livable present while coming to terms with their legacies. Cary (Pride, 1999, etc.) returns to some of the themes of her earlier books: the abandonment of children, perhaps for their own good, and the ways we knit family together—with great success. Jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint, the narrative remains lively and distinctive, and if some of the bombshells are easy to predict (particularly the tragedy of Rayne's uncle), they are still affecting. While racism and its long-lasting toll are constant themes, Cary never gets preachy.
A well-paced, entertaining novel woven of many strands that enlightens without becoming didactic.
Roy Hoffman
…Cary…creates characters with such full-bodied life that their predicaments remain vivid…[throughout this] bluesy and emotionally resonant novel…—The New York Times
Tina McElroy Ansa
Lorene Cary, who broke onto the literary landscape 20 years ago with a beautifully evocative memoir called Black Ice, has written a novel, her third, worthy of that auspicious beginning…Readers are in the sure hands of a mature craftswoman.—The Washington Post