I will never walk a mile or even one step in their shoes. I’ll never feel a whip shredding my flesh; never be condemned to hard labor in a coal mine or fear being abducted into such a life. I have, I suspect, had job applications tossed out because of my name but I’ve never had entire career possibilities closed off. I’ve never been hauled to prison for smoking a joint while nearby anglos, doing the same, look on. This is privilege, and it makes my reading experience both uncomfortable and so rewarding.

Damn, what a book. Gyasi offers a visceral feel for the crushing inescapable suffering of one subset of humanity at the hands of another subset. It’s impossible for most of us to really feel what those lives were like, but Gyasi lets us come close to imagining it. The book follows two parallel timelines, the (mostly mis)fortunes of two Ghanaian sisters and their progeny across two centuries: one sister taken—involuntarily, and you know what I mean—to the American colonies, the other remaining in Ghana; each one, and each descendant, suffering cruelties we just can’t really fathom. The glimpses Gyasi coolly gives us are stomach-turning, often more so because we know we will never in our armchair lives feel anything close to those horrors, and certainly not every day for the entire duration of our lives. My privilege humbles me.

The suffering isn’t just in the West: none of the characters in the Ghana storyline leads a charmed life either. The evils, though, are different in scope and kind and scale and intention; theirs are by and large the everyday ills of humankind. The contrast with the lives of those in the US is stark and sobering. I could go on at great length, but have already blathered too much. Beautiful language, deeply moving stories, perspectives that may stay with you. Just read it.

One recommendation: read it in hardcopy, not ebook or audio. There’s a family tree diagram in the front that is invaluable; I flipped back to it at least once per chapter, sometimes more.