Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Memphis is a wide-ranging story focusing on the fate of one Black family (made up mostly of women) in the last 70 years of American history. Undercurrents of racism, domestic violence and mental health flow through the story, but the characters of Miriam, August, Joan and Hazel are shining beacons that pull you through. Despite their misfortunes, the Norths are a family you would want to be part of. Stringfellow has written a powerful ode to Black femininity and humanity that deserves to be read everywhere.

WOW!! MEMPHIS is absolutely one of those books that will stay with you, it is a captivating story that elegantly showcases the resilience, courage and tenacity of Black women.

Filled with a beautiful lyrical language, Stringfellow writes a story inspired by her own family history. It follows, Hazel, Miriam, August and Joan, three generations of North women living in Memphis, Tennessee. I loved the family dynamics, the community solidarity and seeing how each woman adjusted and dealt with all the challenges that came their way.

After the first chapter I thought it would be an extremely trauma heavy focused read, but as I read on, it became clear that while the book mentions several awful events, ones that affect the lives of these women and the men around them. The story as a whole explores the consequences of living through abuse, poverty, the civil rights movement, racism and police brutality. It’s about how problem's get passed down the generations, to continue to affect people’s lives and the hope and love that can be a constant driving force.

A stunning debut from an author I’m excited to read more from in the future.

5🌟

CW: Mentions of rape, violence, abuse, death

Memphis tells the story of the women of the North family - Hazel, Miriam, August and Joan. It tells the story of a neighbourhood in North Memphis, and the people who live there. Celebrating joyous moments but also not shying away from the brutalities of life, Memphis does feature some events that are upsetting. If you need content warnings please seek them out.

Memphis honours black women. Stringfellow lovingly imbues her characters with strengths and flaws, representing them as rounded individuals that leap off the page.

There are many instances of stunning, poetic prose throughout this story. Music is a strong through-line as it nurtures the soul, and food which nurtures the body.

I recommend this read. If anything I wish it had been longer and we'd spent more time with the family. I did wonder about the placement of some of the sections we read and if these could have been arranged chronologically.

A strong 🌟🌟🌟🌟 read for me. I look forward to reading more from this author. my thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Such a joy, and a powerhouse of a book. The story of one family- three generations - told primarily through the voices of Hazel, Miriam and Joan. All 3 have gone through, and survived traumatic events - and this is the story of their resilience, their strength and their talents to survive, against a charismatic Memphis backdrop. All three are terrifically drawn characters, and whilst so many books with multiple characters you end up favouring one or two of the narratives - this was a total pleasure to read all of the voices. As it jumped timelines or voices I never felt the flow was disrupted and a truly satisfying read as a result.

🌿BOOK REVIEW🌿

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow

“Men and death. Men and death. How on earth y’all run the world when all y’all have ever done is kill each other?”

In this striking debut novel we follow three generations of women who live in the town of Douglass, in South-West America. To summarise, the three generations are:
- Hazel: the eldest of the women
- Miriam and August: the children of Hazel
- Joan and Mya: the children of Miriam

This was a difficult story to read, with acts of such violence and hatred, but we are left with the undeniable power of sisterhood. Throughout the years we see the women of this family support each other through some incredibly traumatic periods as they come out the other side to flourish in their own way. A huge theme in this book is dealing with trauma and how to find yourself within that. The women all make some incredibly difficult decisions, but support one another through them.

They are all such incredibly strong female characters that are truly inspiring- finding love after the brutal murder of her husband, leaving an abusive partner, following a passion for the arts, and maintaining true love for their family.

I honestly cannot believe that this is a debut novel, the writing is so breathtaking and lyrical that it pulls you in to feel every single emotion that these characters are feeling. Throughout the 70 years that this novel spans, the chapters jump between character perspective and timezone. This is a very difficult writing style to pull off and I can honestly say that Stringfellow does this incredibly well.

This will be in my 2022 favourites for sure, happy publication day Tara!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

⚠️CW// rape, sexual assault, child abuse, domestic abuse, gun violence, racism

[ad-gifted book]

I found this a difficult story to read, not because the writing was poor, on the contrary, but the because the saga is unrelentingly grim. There is very little light relief in it. It is powerful, jaw dropping in places and touching in its forgiveness.

I got Memphis by Tara M Stringfellow, from NetGalley for a fair and honest review.

Memphis is the story of three generations of black women, in the American southern state of Tennessee, from the 1930’s to the early 21st century.

While the novel covers a 70-year period it is not done in a sequential order so starting in the 1930’s and going forward. Instead, Memphis jumps around going forwards and backwards in time.
While this allows the novel to reveal the reason why someone gets a pie because of an earlier event, it sometimes can add to the difficulty of following the novel.
In addition to this having 3 main characters in the story also lead to some confusion in reading the story, as the novel changed both individual and timeline change.
Having said all that once I got into the story the book flowed in a way that as I was reading the book it seemed that this is the only way that it could be written.
Memphis is a story of issues that affected the individual characters of the novel, however the story never seemed to show a a pity story as all the characters were strong woman.
This makes Memphis by Tara M Stringfellow a great read.

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow

This is a strong contender for my book of the year, it was so beautiful ❤️

Memphis tells the story of three generations of women growing up in Memphis: Hazel just as America joins WW2, her daughters Miriam and August and Miriam's daughters Joan and Mya at the turn of the century. Between them they experience 9/11, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, WW2, lynching of black police officers, and their own personal tragedies. Without giving the ending away, I cried with tears of happiness at the end, it was like seeing off my own daughter as she starts a new life.

There is one topic that the novel deals with which I will mention at the end of my review in case you'd like a warning. Although shocking, it brought up so many questions at the end of the novel. Joan is faced with the possibility of revenge and the burden of unforgiveness and it poses a real dilemma for the reader. I thought this was tackled so brilliantly by Stringfellow. The question of belief in a God who takes away our most precious people was brought up again and again in the novel and again Joan seems to have the final say. She leads the novel so well though I loved reading all of the stories from all three generations of women.

Such a powerful, beautiful book I will be recommending to everyone. Thank you for my advanced copy!
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Content warnings:
Child rape, lynching.

This novel has a powerful grip on me. Stringfellow weaves together the memories of multiple generations of African women, moving back and forth in time and hopping from one person to the next. I'm not sure I could say anything about this book that would do it justice. It was wonderful; it was immediately engaging and well-written, and as I read it, it took me on an emotional rollercoaster. This is a story of tenacity, courage, and strength in the face of adversity.
Because the characters are so well-developed, I have completely adopted them and will keep them in my heart. It was amazing, and I want to read more by Tara Stringfellow in the future.

Memphis gives voice to three generations of females from the North family. All struggling to escape the past and the destiny assigned to them by their race, culture and the men in their lives. They suffer loss, love, violence and success, taking diverging paths in opposition to societal expectations. These are self-made women striving to better themselves in a world where they are at the bottom of the ladder. Brimming with the sounds of the southern city of Memphis, Stringfellow brings to life a vibrant world full of possibility that is there for the taking and which can not quash the narrators' drive to overcome.

Published this week, Memphis has been chosen by Eason (Irish booksellers) as one of their recommended spring reads. It’s an engrossing tale of three generations of Black women from Douglass, Memphis.

We meet matriarch Hazel, her daughters Miriam and August, and Miriam’s daughter Joan, who has within her grasp the power to change her family’s legacy.

Spanning seventy years, we get a sense of what these women have had to endure and sacrifice over the course of their lives: injustice, police brutality, racism, domestic abuse, rape, single parenting, the fight for civil liberties, access to education, PTSD of a spouse, 9/11, and the ties that bind families together in spite of trauma and past recriminations.

The story is told in a non-linear narrative which I usually like but on this occasion I felt the timeline was a little too disjointed and distracted from the story. There wasn’t a big reveal at the end that warranted the choppy timeline. There’s a decision that Miriam makes early on in the book that I struggled with too but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.

I loved the sisterly bond between Miriam and August, and between Joan and her little sister Mya and I’d definitely recommend it. An immersive debut, beautifully written with some brilliant female characters. 3.5-4/5 ⭐️

*Content warning ⚠️: there is a harrowing scene concerning the rape of a child. There isn’t a graphic description but it is disturbing and I felt it warranted a warning.

Sincere thanks to the author, the publisher John Murray Press and @netgalley for an advance copy of this book. Memphis will be published this Thursday 7 April.

Tara M. Stringfellow’s debut novel focusing on three generations of a family living in Memphis could only have been written by a poet. There’s a voluptuousness to her words, a richness in description, an over-ripeness which beautifully conveys Memphis, Tennessee.
In 1995 Miriam returns in her battered car with daughters Joan and Mya and Wolf the dog to the house she grew up in and to her sister August and her son Derek. Joan’s unexpected reaction to her cousin shows that there is a history to this family. We jump around a fair bit incorporating Miriam and August’s upbringing and their parents, especially mother Hazel, but the focus is on the eight years after Joan’s return to Memphis. She is given a first-person narrative which is interspersed by third-person narratives which focus on the other characters. The women are central, the male characters are little under-realised which is no doubt the author’s intention. It is time to let these impressive women have their say away from the troubles that these men cause for the family.
At times it was hard not to be reminded of another “return home” Southern Black American saga I read recently, the critically acclaimed “The Love Songs Of W E B DuBois” by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. Both are debuts by women who have made their name in poetry and whereas I felt that Fanonne Jeffers’ novel was too long “Memphis” is too short. I wanted more from the lives of these women, especially August, who is a terrific character and who I felt could have been further fleshed out through her own narrative. But every author knows the importance of leaving their readers wanting more and that is why I would give “Memphis” the slight edge. The importance of carving out one’s own route is emphasised in both books and this can be found through education. There’s enough autobiographical clues in the author’s acknowledgements to indicate that Tara M. Stringfellow was really writing what she knows with elements of plot and characterisation overlapping her own life.
This is a very strong contemporary saga which deserves a wide readership.
“Memphis” is published by John Murray in the UK on April 7th 2022. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

What a heart-soaring, gut-punching read Memphis is! Yes, named for the place it’s set, this is a generational tale of a family of charismatic women: Hazel, Miriam, August, Joan and Mya. You feel the warmth and pain of America’s deep south coming from the pages and get completely engrossed in the lives of these remarkable women.

The chapters move between each woman across a range of 20th century timeframes spanning around 70 years. Joan felt like more of a lead character to me, from childhood trauma we see her grow into a character that you genuinely care about. There are some high-drama moments as the family face racism, violence and a tragic event within the confines of their own family home.

But, there is also happiness, loyalty and dreams. What Memphis does so well is capture the volatile nature of life and scatter both sides of the emotional spectrum through the read to make sure you keep turning those pages. The strong family ties are the heart of this book. I was rooting for Joan and loved discovering more of her history and what made her who she is.

At times Memphis was a hard-hitting read but overall it had such a lyrical feel that you were hooked. It sets its generational story against the backdrop of key moments in American history and when novels do this, I find it really helps to add authenticity to the story and make the characters seem so real. I mean, the excellent writing also plays a part in that – and the words just flow wonderfully from the page here.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

Wow, this was a heartbreaking book but also full of hope. I almost stopped reading when we got to know why Joan hated Derek so much. I felt physical ill but I powered through. It's a very strong book and I'm gonna need some time to digest it. The writing was impeccable.

Thank you to NetGalley as well as John Murray Press for providing me with an eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Debut novels get better every year.

"Memphis," Tara M. Stringfellow's beautifully written debut, follows the lives of three generations of North women living in the city for which the eponymous book is named. Hazel meets Myron North in 1937 and marries him six years later; her daughters Miriam and August grow up together in the house Myron built them, until Miriam marries Jax and moves out to Chicago; she returns in 1995 with her young daughters Joan and Mya, running away from the man she thought was her soulmate. All these women face more than their fair share of hardships—poverty, racism, the destructive actions of men—but they, much like Hazel when confronted with a white man who called her "girl" and acted affronted that she was in the white people's section of a store, looked straight at their problems "without bent head or lowered gaze or blinking eye."

Despite—or perhaps because of—all they went through, these women found a way to love their families even harder. They'd argue and come back together, make mistakes and apologize, forgive and forget and have faith that as long as they were together, they'd make life work. It was inspiring, really, seeing them figure out the present and aim for better futures, each and every single one of them. The recurring characters in every woman's story, like Miss Dawn and Stanley, helped them in their own ways and were essentially some of my favorite characters to see engaging with the main ones.

The narrative did, however, get a bit confusing at times. It was bound to: when a story twists its way from the present to six different points in the past, it becomes difficult to keep track of what happens when, even when each chapter begins with the year carefully printed under the name of the character whose perspective is being presented. I would often get lost in these pathways through time, and it would take me a couple of pages to figure out where in the narrative the current plot resided.

This is also an extremely difficult book to read. Not because of the writing, which is elegant and clear, but because of the violence inflicted on certain members and described in graphic detail. The scenes don't leave one's mind easy. There is a point to this description, though: it stands as a reminder to readers that the future can't be made better without confronting the past head-on, acknowledging the cruelty and inhuman nature that shaped a whole history of people. One can't just ignore the past; one shouldn't, if genuinely intent on ending its brutality and creating a different future.

"Memphis" releases officially on April 7. If interested in historical fiction spanning several decades, and intrigued by the descriptor of this being a "Black fairy tale," then consider picking it up whenever you get the chance. It'll be worth your while.

Not sure if it was a file/download issue but there were lots of gaps, stop/starts which really ruined the flow. I would love the chance to read a better version as the description of the book appeals to me.

What an amazing book!
Narrated in turns by the female members of the North family,it encapsulates the hardshipsendured and the amazind friendships forged by these women.
With beautiful descriptive prose interspersed with horrors from their tough lives, this is one book which shouts out to be read.

I’m writing this review through tears. What a powerhouse of a novel. Moving, shocking, funny, hopeful and everything in between. This story of three generations of black women set in Memphis is definitely going to be one of my books of the year. It’s written so beautifully, with such a strong sense of place and time, but it’s the characters, oh the characters who give this novel such heart. Every single person who appears in this book appears larger than life, they are so vivid. Just read it.

This book! It’s an absolute masterpiece that broke me down and then built me right back up again. The inspirational women of the North family and the city they call home come alive on the pages, and the love that binds them courses through every page like blood through a beating heart. Everyone should read this, it is STUNNING. I can already tell it’s going to be my top read of the year.

A great strong family of beautiful women who you will meet and fall in love with.
This book was like reading poetry so beautiful and real i was sad when this book came to an end, i felt like i had an extended family while reading this.
Life, love and passion is what makes this book so amazing.