Blog tour: The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams
This post is part of a blog tour organised by Random Things Blog Tours. I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.
‘It’s 1995, and fourteen-year-old Tati is determined to uncover the identity of her father. But her mother, Nadia, keeps her secrets close, while her grandmother Gladys remains silent about the family’s past, including why she left Land’s End, Alabama, in 1953. As Tati digs deeper, she uncovers a legacy of family secrets, where every generation of Dupree women has posed more questions than answers.
‘From Jubi in 1917, whose attempt to pass for white ends when she gives birth to Ruby; to Ruby’s fiery lust for Sampson in 1934 that leads to a baby of her own; to the night in 1980 that changed Nadia’s future forever, the Dupree women carry the weight of their heritage.
‘Bound by a mysterious malediction that means they will only give birth to daughters, the Dupree women confront a legacy of pain, resilience, and survival that began with an enslaved ancestor who risked everything for freedom.’
The Seven Daughters of Dupree, by Nikesha Elise Williams, jumps across space and time to tell the stories of the members of a Black matrilineal line: Emma, Jubi, Ruby, Gladys, Nadia, and Tati.
The daughter of an Alabama plantation owner (the eponymous Dupree) and a slave who died soon after giving birth in 1860, Emma is freed and comes to inherit her father’s land and business, but is haunted by the fate that befell her mother, and heartbroken that none of her baby boys survive, leaving only Jubi to carry on the line.
Jubi and her descendants in turn experience distressing trials and hardships, with unplanned pregnancies, single daughters, and derelict fathers recurring themes – as well as a steely resolve to do better by the next generation. By the late 90s, teenage Tati can no longer bear Gladys’ and Nadia’s silences on so many aspects of their family history, prompting a well-overdue catharsis.
I found The Seven Daughters of Dupree very absorbing. As well as moving me emotionally, the way the story is constructed, and the variety of themes it covers, gave me a lot to think about.
The way the book hops in time, and between the Dupree daughters, was quite confusing at first (I think I’d have settled in more quickly and easily if there had been a family tree, so I could keep it straight in my head who was whose daughter/(great) grand-daughter), but once I got used to it, this became a strength, as it helped me to see the clever (and sometimes Easter egg-ish!) parallels Williams draws between different pairs of women.
This format also showcases the author’s skills of discipline and economy. I feel like all the main characters have so much to them, they could warrant a novel apiece (and I would totally read such a series!), but Williams sticks to the salient points, when the characters are in their late teens/early twenties and, in most cases, pregnant/new mothers. This is because so much of the trauma they carry around and pass down is related to childbearing, with racism, colourism, baby loss, fathers outright rejecting their responsibilities, and rape being particular (heavy) themes.
The story behind Emma’s birth, when we learn it, is absolutely horrific, but its inclusion is necessary, to a) remind us of the shocking (to say the least) ways slavers viewed and treated the Black people they “owned”, and b) explain the mental scars shared by the Dupree women, including the belief (that persists despite Gladys having two sons) that they’re cursed to have just one daughter each generation.
This cumulative trauma affects mother-daughter relationships all the way down the line, with several of the women going through life questioning whether they’re “enough” because their mothers had so badly wanted sons as well, or thinking of themselves as burdens because their mothers had plans that got derailed by having a child.
Jubi and Gladys are particularly harsh towards Ruby and Nadia respectively as a result of trauma. This, and Tati’s role as a cycle-breaker, put me in mind of A Council of Dolls, by Susan Mona Power, which examines the effects of intergenerational trauma on a line of Native American women – another group severely wronged by white colonisers.
Meanwhile, the women’s habitual silence on, or “talking around” of painful subjects – at times, even the reader doesn’t quite know what’s happened until Tati forces it out into the open – is reminiscent of Beloved, by Toni Morrison, which is obviously high praise indeed.
The Seven Daughters of Dupree is a staggering and stirring novel that contains multitudes.
