The story of America is also the story of families and of what one generation inherits from the last and what it chooses to carry forward. These five novels span decades, and sometimes centuries, using intimate family histories to explore race, identity, migration, community and belonging. From Chicago’s Cabrini-Green to Detroit’s East Side and a family’s ancestral home in Georgia, each shows how the forces shaping a country can reverberate through generations.
Crossing Division Street by Rebecca Chamian Ribaudo
A century of Chicago history comes alive through four generations of one family.
Beginning with a frightened eight-year-old girl jumping into attorney Sidone Russo’s car in Cabrini-Green, Ribaudo’s debut expands into a sweeping 100-year family saga. Moving through the neighborhood’s history from Little Sicily to Cabrini-Green, the novel examines how race, ethnicity, religion and nationality shape ideas about who belongs and how the conflicts and prejudices of one generation can become the inheritance of the next.
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
One Detroit home holds more than half a century of family history.
Thirteen siblings, one family home and a dramatically changing Detroit form the heart of Flournoy’s novel. When the Turner siblings must decide what to do with the house their family has occupied for more than 50 years, they also have to confront the memories, sacrifices and unresolved histories attached to it. The novel makes a changing neighborhood inseparable from the family that calls it home.
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
One woman searches through centuries of family history to understand who she is.
Jeffers’ epic follows Ailey Pearl Garfield while reaching backward through generations of her Black, Indigenous and white ancestry. Spanning more than two centuries, the novel intertwines one family’s history with slavery, racism, migration and the continuing struggle over identity and belonging in America.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Past and present collide in a powerful portrait of Chicago and the legacy of loss.
Moving between Chicago during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and Paris three decades later, Makkai explores how historical trauma continues to shape relationships long after the defining moment has passed. It emphasizes memory, community and the lasting consequences of a particular chapter in Chicago history.
The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang
A Chinese American family confronts identity, reputation and how their community sees them.
When the patriarch of the Chao family is murdered, his three sons find themselves subjected to intense scrutiny. Set in a small Wisconsin town, Chang’s novel uses family conflict and a murder mystery to explore race, assimilation, belonging and the divide between how people understand themselves and how the outside world defines them.
