The Turner House – Angela Flournoy
Novel Conversation’s Book Club – March 2018 Book – The Turner House, by Angela Flournoy
It was another great meeting last week. We read The Turner House, by Angela Flournoy, and once again, our discussions brought forth ideas and thoughts that quite frankly had not occurred to me or many others in the room. The story is centered around a house and a family trying to decide what to do with it.
From the very first pages, we are introduced to Cha-Cha and his “haint”, first seen in 1958 and which (or who?) appears later on in the book. What’s a haint? I ain’t saying! Honestly, without giving away too much, for those that haven’t read the book, suffice it to say that maybe we all have our versions of haints. Some are just easier to see. A number of our readers brought forth several theories of what, or who, the haint could be and armed with that information, Cha-Cha’s character was coaxed out of the pages to become a very real person. So real, in fact, that it’s made me question some of my own haints.
The Turner’s are a black family from Detroit and the story mostly goes back and forth between present day (2008) and the 1930s. As most of you know, the auto industry crisis practically decimated large portions of Detroit neighborhoods, so much so that one description of the family house pretty much sums up the devastation. I’m going to quote it here (pg 19 in my book) – “The Turner house, originally three lots into the block, had become a corner house in recent years…”. That statement really stuck with me – few words but huge statement.
The grown children in the Turner family – there are 13 – must decide what to do with the house they all grew up in. Their mother Viola is quite ill and currently living with Cha-Cha, the eldest. Everyone knows she will never return home. The book chooses to focus on Cha-Cha and Lelah, the youngest. Other siblings are included as well and become minor characters in this story but we never quite get to know them as well as Cha-Cha and Lelah. Viola’s story is told through flashbacks to the 1930s. Her story frames the context of the current day issues confronting the siblings.
This is a story of a family that talks to each other, not afraid to speak up when they think someone’s wrong and not afraid to respond when it’s directed at them. Even though they have their own things going on, they are still able to come together and celebrate the simple joys of being a family.
Angela Flournoy, the author, is wonderful at bringing these characters to life. They’re certainly not flat like characters I wish I knew better from other authors. She has a way of writing that almost makes me feel like I could reach in the pages to pinch a couple of those characters to see if they’re real and gonna pinch back or they’re haints themselves. Yeah, she’s that good and this is only her first novel. Wow!!
If you’re interested in reading more about this book, check out this link. I really encourage you to read it – it’s a really good story about family.
And don’t forget, for April, we’re reading Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. I’m looking forward to that discussion too!
See you next month,
Donna
