Susan Straight Knihy

A rich, lyrical and passionate novel which portrays the life of a black woman growing up in America's Deep South.

"In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self-proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close-knit Sims family, Straight--and eventually her three daughters--heard for decades the stories of Dwayne's female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post-slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight's mother-in-law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan's family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward--from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California. A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan--those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, "The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival." In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women."--Jacket

"A California epic following several native, diverse Californians grasping for air in a world that continues to marginalize them."--

The story follows Serafina, an undocumented worker forced to leave California and her young daughter Elvia behind. Twelve years later, armed with only a pair of silver barrettes as a memory, Serafina embarks on a perilous journey to reunite with Elvia, who is now a pregnant teenager searching for her mother. Their paths intertwine against a backdrop of struggling migrants and lost children, highlighting themes of love, hope, and the quest for family amidst hardship.

In the 1800s, African-American and Mexican-American families fled violence and segregation to come West, to make home and family in the promised land. Their descendants keep traditions and loyalty alive in driveways, boxing rings, restaurants, churches, and on the sidewalks filled with stories and kinship and laughter, rememory and love.