"Red at the Bone" by Jacqueline Woodson

In many ways, Red at the Bone parallels The Mothers, which I read last year for book club. In both books, young Black teenagers become pregnant. Afterwards the mothers seek life far away from home--and their children's fathers--at college, while the young fathers stay home, mourning their lost loves. The central difference is that the pregnancy in The Mothers ends in abortion, while Iris, the mother in Red at the Bone, chooses to keep her child.

That key difference allows Iris' daughter Melody to become a character central to the novel, and it also allows Melody's father--Aubrey--a different path than the father in The Mothers.

Red at the Bone provides the perspective of many characters: Iris, Aubrey, Melody, and Iris' parents. This allows Woodson to give internal and external contextualization to each character's feelings of love and grief, frustration and dreams. I particularly appreciated the voice of Iris' mother, Sabe, as she carries on the legacy of her family while working to support her future. Given the recent controversy over Trump's decision to hold at election rally (the day after Juneteenth) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of a horrific massacre of Black residents by white mobs in 1921, the novel situating Sabe's life as a reaction to her family's experience in Tulsa was especially meaningful.

The multitude of voices in a slim book does mean some elements get short-shrift. Aubrey and Iris are brought alive as a young people but given little attention as adults, and Aubrey's death on 9/11 felt too quickly gleamed over. I would have also liked more on Iris and Melody's relationship as adults, given its strained beginning.

Overall I preferred The Mothers in its rich depiction of characters, but Red at the Bone offers more nuance into the family dynamics at play.