Review of Kin by Tayari Jones

Jones throws every issue imaginable at her two main protagonists, best friends living in the Deep South, both without their mothers. The young women cope with their pain in divergent ways, and while I was interested in the story, I wanted to feel a deeper emotional connection to the characters and the increasingly dramatic layers of the novel's events.

Young Annie and Vernice were best friends in small-town Louisiana. Both grew up without mothers, but then their paths diverged.

In the 1960s, Vernice (Niecy) headed to Spelman College, befriending powerful young women, fighting inequality, and finding her voice. Annie became increasingly fixated on her mother's absence, and her search for her place in the world promised adventure but quickly bordered on (then fully bled into) self-destruction.

For me, a main strength of Kin is Jones's ability to build a rich Southern setting and to layer issues of race, class, wealth, and power atop it.

Annie's almost-constant focus on her mother's abandonment began to feel overpowering; she is unable to live day-to-day life because of her obsession with her mother's absence. (In light of this, I was incredibly frustrated by the fact that Annie did not promptly try to access her mother when she finally learned of her address.) She is singleminded and without deviation from her one focus, yet she achieves little to nothing around this preoccupation. Her fixation seems to take the place of character development; she doesn't seem to grow or change because of the absence of her mother or because of her unstoppable focus on this absence. She does, however, become distracted enough to miss out on a chance at love, then allow herself to be taken advantage of, to devastating effect.

On the other hand, Niecy's mother died in a tragic manner, so there's no hope of a second chance at a relationship with her. As a result of her loss, Niecy becomes largely closed-off emotionally, rejecting aspects of herself that might invite social criticism, and she is increasingly set upon achieving stability. Her mother-in-law is very involved in Niecy's "finishing"; she is controlling, and she places extreme importance upon Niecy's behavior, dress, and habits.

Jones throws all manner of major issues at her characters: body autonomy; wealth and privilege; the paralysis of poverty; issues of race, civil rights, education, and women's rights; loyalty and friendship; relationship power mismatches; and more. A lot occurs within the story, yet I found myself wanting to feel more around the dramatic scenarios within which Jones places her characters. I felt more curious than invested, and I wished for more of an emotional anchor with the protagonists.

There's an intriguing but strangely extended stay at a compound that's a brothel (where the male characters are weak and careless enough to make you want to scream with the debt they incur for our female characters, desperate to leave), and the madam becomes an unlikely, unwilling version of a surrogate mother to Annie.

The story builds theatrically to an ending that takes the drama to another level.

I received a prepublication edition of Kin courtesy of NetGalley and Knopf.

More Books You Might Like

Tayari Jones is also the author of An American Marriage.

You might want to check out these books that center around race, the South, and friendship.