When James Witherspoon, the owner of a successful limousine service, and Gwendolyn Yarboro have their marriage ceremony in 1969 four months after the birth of their baby Dana, Gwen knows that James already has a wife and an even younger baby. The Untelling is a poignant story about the often cruel randomness of life, and how one woman in particular copes with it.Īrlene McKanic writes from Jamaica, New York.In her third novel set in Atlanta, Jones ( The Untelling, 2005, etc.) writes about two African-American half sisters, only one of whom knows that the other exists until their father’s double life starts to unravel. The Jacksons are strong women they have survived, and will continue to survive. Jones' writing is graceful and lucid, and though the story ends unhappily, it doesn't end in despair. Even Ariadne's father, though only seen in glimpses, comes across as sweet, gentle and flawed. There's Cynthia, the homeless crack addict Rochelle, Ariadne's roommate whom Ariadne envies for her smooth relationship with her fiancé and Keisha, the sweet but naive pregnant teenager who attends Ariadne's literacy class. Jones surrounds these unhappy women with other well-drawn characters.

Also, like her mother (who was holding baby Genevieve on her lap during the car accident), Ariadne carries an unwarranted but overpowering burden of guilt: she blames herself for refusing to comfort her father during his last moments of life. This problem has especially sad consequences for her relationship with her boyfriend Dwayne. Ariadne's father died when she was on the brink of puberty, and it seems that her very womanhood has been compromised.

Hermione has married her father's best friend and her relations with her stepdaughter, a woman who's older than she is, are icy. Eloise's quirkiness she chose her daughters' names can turn mean she can bake BB's into cornbread, or capriciously lock her daughters out of the house. The damage sometimes manifests in roundabout ways. Ariadne, her mother Eloise and older sister Hermione survived, physically unscarred, but psychologically mangled. When Ariadne Jackson was around 10 years old, her father and younger sister Genevieve were killed in a car crash that Jones describes with quiet, matter-of-fact horror. Her new novel, The Untelling, though focused on one family, tells a story no less wrung with grief. Tayari Jones' first novel, Leaving Atlanta, dealt with the sorrow and horror of the Atlanta Child Murders of the early 1980s.

The Untelling by Tayari Jones