Black History Month Read: Things Past Telling: A Literary Epic of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – One Woman’s Fierce Survival from Africa 

337 pages Publisher Amistad Pub Date Mar 15 2022

ABOUT THE BOOK

Things Past Telling is a remarkable historical epic that charts one unforgettable woman’s journey across an ocean of years as vast as the Atlantic that will forever separate her from her homeland.

Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Grace—a.k.a “Momma Grace” will live a long, wondrous life marked by hardship, oppression, opportunity, and love. Though she will be “gifted” various names, her birth name is known to her alone. Over the course of 100-plus years, she survives capture, enslavement by several property owners, the Atlantic crossing when she is only eleven years of age, and a brief stint as a pirate’s ward, acting as both a spy and a translator.

Maryam learns midwifery from a Caribbean-born wise woman, whose “craft” combines curated techniques and medicines from African, Indigenous, and European women. Those midwifery skills allow her to sometimes transcend the racial and class barriers of her enslavement, as she walks the razor’s edge trying to balance the lives and health of her own people with the cruel economic mandates of the slave holders, who view infants born in bondage not as flesh-and-blood children but as investment property.

Throughout her triumphant and tumultuous life Maryam gains and loses her homeland, her family, her culture, her husband, her lovers, and her children. Yet as the decades pass, this tenacious woman never loses her sense of self.

Inspired by a 112-year-old woman the author discovered in an 1870 U.S. Federal census report for Ohio, loosely based on the author’s real-life female ancestors, spanning more than a hundred years, from the mid-eighteen-century to the end of America’s Civil War, and spanning across the globe, from what is now southern Nigeria to the islands of the Caribbean to North America and the land bordering the Ohio River, Things Past Telling is a breathtaking story of a past that lives on in all of us, and a life that encompasses the best—and worst—of our humanity.

MY THOUGHTS

This is Maryam Prescilla Grace—a.k.a “Momma Grace” ‘s story all 112 years of it. It starts at the end of her life, and goes through her life as she reminisces winding up back at the end again.
Very character driven. A young child forced to grow up way before her time, you could never say she had an easy life but smart as could be she adapted to whatever life presented to her. She had a choice, be weak, soft, an easy target or not. She didn’t take the easy way in life as she was a survivor.
Kidnapped from her African homeland forced to make an Atlantic crossing at only eleven years old. A voyage that saw the death of her sister, her protector. Enslaved by several masters, a wise woman taught her the midwifery skill that would have her in high demand for the rest of her life. A skill that would take her from being sure she couldn’t do it to being highly skilled and respected amongst the blacks and whites alike.
No stranger to hardships and personal loss she sees loved ones sold away and pass on.
Strength and resilience, the best and the worst of humanity as the story is played out. Loosely based on the life of an amazing woman and her family the author found through her research
Excellent and highly recommended!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Sheila Williams is the award-winning author of several acclaimed novels, including No Better Time, Things Past Telling, The Secret Women, Girls Most Likely, The Shade of My Own Tree, On the Right Side of a Dream, and Dancing on the Edge of the Roof—the inspiration for the Netflix film Juanita, starring Alfre Woodard.

Her most recent novel, No Better Time, is an engrossing historical tale that shines a light on the little-known story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion—the only unit comprised entirely of women of color to serve overseas during World War II. The book was named a February 2024 “Books We Can’t Wait to Read” pick by The Root, a Black History Month selection by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and a BookSparks Book Club pick.

Williams’s 2022 novel Things Past Telling was a New York Times Book Review Summer Reading Pick and a Washington Post “10 Noteworthy Books for March” selection. It also earned spots on Bookworm’s Best Books of 2022 list and Book-ish’s “Books by Black Authors We Can’t Wait to Read.”

Her previous novel, The Secret Women, was featured as a top beach read by TIME, Woman’s World, Parade, and more in the summer of 2020.

In addition to her fiction, Sheila Williams is also a librettist. Fierce, her original opera created in collaboration with composer Dr. William Menefield, made its world premiere at Cincinnati Opera in July 2022. Inspired by the lives of Cincinnati-area teenage girls, the production was developed with community partners WordPlay Cincy, The Music Resource Center–Cincinnati, and i.imagine.

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Sheila now lives in northern Kentucky. She continues to write stories that explore the complexities of identity, resilience, sisterhood, and self-discovery.

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