“History,” one of the characters in Good Dirt remarks, “can only be told through a chorus of voices.” Charmaine Wilkerson’s (Black Cake) second novel reminds us that we need access to a multitude of stories for a full understanding of our country’s rich and complicated past.
On her wedding day, Ebony (Ebby) Freeman, the daughter of an affluent Black family in a seaside Connecticut town, finds herself the center of attention for the wrong reason: Her fiancé, Henry, has left her at the altar. And this is not her first time having her pain put in the spotlight. As a child, Ebby witnessed the murder of her 15-year-old brother, Baz, during a home robbery that also destroyed a valuable family heirloom, a clay pot made by an enslaved ancestor. The violent crime has haunted her for years, and the media focus on the Freeman family because of their wealth and race has also taken a toll. Nine months after the broken nuptials, Ebby plans to manage a friend’s guest house in a French village while she devotes herself to gathering family stories about the pot that was broken during the robbery. But when Henry and his new girlfriend turn out to be the house’s first guests, Ebby’s hopes for a restorative working vacation go awry.
Wilkerson chose a nonlinear narrative to craft this ambitious novel, reaching as far back as the 19th century when the pot was created and brought from South Carolina to Massachusetts, intertwining its legacy with the story of the Freeman family, Henry and Ebby’s courtship and its aftermath, and Ebby’s attempts to heal. Part romantic drama, part history lesson, Good Dirt dilutes its power with a few narrative missteps, and by overextending its reach with characters that are tangential to the plot (like Henry’s rebound girlfriend, Avery). Though the issues she raises don’t get a completely satisfying exploration, readers will be intrigued by Wilkerson’s efforts to illuminate the complex ways in which American history continuously informs the present.
