These Bones by Kayla Chenault

​     Well, this was interesting. Too complicated of a read to simply define as good or otherwise and a pretty striking amount of content crammed into such a slender volume. Like many books these days this one is about race, specifically black experience in the 1920s and 30s in one neighborhood of Bramble Patch.
     It’s so busy and attempts to span so much, that it requires its own personae dramatis. And still, it’s difficult to follow at times all of the numerous characters and all of the terrible things that befall them. There’s the ever prevalent evil of general racism, but also on a smaller scale evil personified as a local pimp of vicious appetites.
     Because the novel goes for the complete and almost documentary approach, it also features interviews, articles, etc. pertaining to Bramble Patch denizens and their descendants and, because the author obviously has very high literary aspirations, the narrative tends to have a dreamy, well nightmarish, really, poetic tone to it, combined with gothic atmosphere…well, it’s a lot.
     Kudos to the author for (mostly) making this wildly ambitious project work, but for how bleak and tragic this book is and for how notably busy it is in shuffling its characters and events, it isn’t an easy book to read, like or recommend. It’s interesting, indeed, and a quick read. The rest is up to individual preferences.