Description

A Libreria Book of the Year 2023

‘A beautiful ode to the power of storytelling, this novel is steeped in the folklore of the Caribbean and weaves a powerful narrative of identity, trauma, resilience and hope’ Eleanor Shearer, author of River Sing Me Home

Zora and Sasha Porter don’t know much of their Jamaican father Nigel’s and Trinidadian mother Beatrice’s pasts. What they do know: the mythic stories of Nigel’s flight to America on the string of a purple balloon, the violent histories in Beatrice’s book of Anansi Stories, that Nigel had a brother, once, and that Beatrice has a tangle of silvery scars on her back.

With their parents’ marriage falling apart, the pair navigate their own relationships and secrets – Zora has impure thoughts about a jock, and Sasha drinks cheap beer with a girl who binds her chest.

A celebration of the power of stories, this startling debut presents a tale of slippery contradictions and an examination of the limits of resilience.

Publisher Review

Sometimes characters are so lively and entertaining, you don't want to say goodbye to them. In wild, firecracker prose, Palmer whirls the reader into a realm where the real and unreal are constantly changing places. It's a stunning feat of storytelling in itself. -- Suzy Feay * Financial Times * What happens to stories that are born of another land? When they migrate multiple times and across multiple generations? Soraya Palmer's ambitious and passionate debut, The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts, is a thoughtful exploration of these questions ... This is a book written with the gods of storytelling in mind; it highlights what stories can do - that it's not just the stories that evolve with each telling, but we ourselves who are rearranged too * New York Times Book Review * A brilliant, compelling exploration of familial legacies. A mythic and edifying read -- Irenosen Okojie, author of Speak Gigantular A beautiful ode to the power of storytelling, this novel is steeped in the folklore of the Caribbean and weaves a powerful narrative of identity, trauma, resilience and hope. Palmer's dynamic and sometimes playful prose had me hooked from the beginning and each character was rounded, nuanced and will stay with me long after reading -- Eleanor Shearer, author of River Sing Me Home An all-consuming novel about sisterhood, motherhood, belonging, loss, and self-discovery. Soraya Palmer's characters are unparalleled and her prose is musical. Read this novel with a sibling, a cousin, or a very close friend -- De'Shawn Winslow, author of In the West Mills and winner of Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize At once mischievous and warm, Soraya Palmer's voice will bewitch you from the very first page, leading you through the complexities of sisterhood and motherhood, belonging and loss -- Mina Seckin, author of The Four Humors The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts envisions family as always in motion, careening through history, connection, attachment, discovery and warmth, with all the pain, loss, and even violence that might include. Expertly paced, deeply imagined, by turns playful and heartbreaking, I love the way this novel understands that sometimes nothing will sustain us except the right story that is truer than true -- Madeline ffitch, author of Stay and Fight Playful and deft -- Daphne Palasi Andreades, author of Brown Girls Palmer weaves folktales and magical realism in her moving debut ... Palmer brings whimsy to her portrayal of the family even in painful moments-such as when Beatrice tells the girls fables to cheer them up-and nuance to the evolving attitudes of the Black American and Caribbean people in Sasha's orbit toward her exploration of sexuality and gender identity. This will stick with readers -- Publisher's Weekly Vivid and otherworldly, this masterfully told novel brings together many threads of family history, personal memory, collective choices, sexuality, and a realm of mysteries and mythic creatures with deep origins and powers . . . A striking and imaginative debut -- Booklist The long and winding name of this assertive debut matches the magnitude of the stories within, which draw on folklore to capture the dynamic between two sisters, Zora and Sasha Porter. Their mother's illness and their father's violence has fractured their relationship, but their bond is reforged as an old family secret-and a surrounding cache of remarkable tales - roars to the surface * Elle, A Most Anticipated Title of the Year * [A] stunning debut novel ... With magnetic prose and nuanced characters, Palmer has created a story where readers will be invested from page one * Shondaland *