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Sign up todaySilver Sparrow
Length
10 hours 22 minutes
Language
English
Narrators
Rosalyn Coleman-Williams & Heather Alicia Simms
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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“This book was so well written. I read Jones' newest work, American Marriage, when it first came out. That book floored me—spectacular writing, structure, and character development. Silver Sparrow brings the same elements, two perspectives that show that there are two sides to every story. What Jones does so well is that the reader feels so deeply for both of these characters (and all the side characters). There is no way to choose (at least for me) a favorite because both girls are portrayed so well from both sides/perspectives. It just goes to show that there are two sides to every story and that there is no one truth. You do find yourself facepalming at the decisions of these adults though. Both of these girls' lives are so dictated by James and his brother-from-another mother (literally) Raleigh. I can't really forgive James for the circumstances that lead to his first marriage with Laverne and Raleigh's acceptance and allowance of it. But also, all their lives and circumstances are dictated by being Black Americans living in the American South so again, no one truth. The narration by Rosalyn Coleman-Williams & Heather Alicia Simms was phenomenal. Still floored by Jones's writing, it's consistently superb—a recommended read!”
— Kimi • Buttonwood Books and Toys
With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist,” author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle.
Set in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered.
As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters—the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle—she reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another’s lives. At the heart of it all are the two lives at stake, and like the best writers—think Toni Morrison with The Bluest Eye—Jones portrays the fragility of these young girls with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women.
Tayari Jones is the author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage. She holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa, and she serves on the MFA faculty at Rutgers.
Rosalyn Coleman Williams is the director of the award-winning short film Allergic to Nuts. She is a 2003 Fox Fellow Award winner and was nominated for a 2006 Barrymore Award for Best Actress for her performance in Intimate Apparel at the Philadelphia Theater Company. Her film credits include Vanilla Sky, Our Song, and Music of the Heart. Rosalyn is a member of New York Women in Film and Television, the East Coast Writers Collective, and a lifetime member of the Actors Studio.
Heather Alicia Simms is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, finalist for an Audie Award, and an actress. Her filmography includes Broken Flowers, Flutter Kick, Shock Act, Kingscounty, Head of State, Third Watch, and others. She also provided voice acting for the video game Red Dead Revolver.
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Reviews
“A love story…Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy…Jones’ skill for wry understatement never wavers.”
“Charting a vast emotional unknown is Tayari Jones’ compelling third novel, Silver Sparrow, in which a teenage girl’s coming of age in 1990s Atlanta is shadowed by her dawning understanding of a corrosive secret—her father’s second family.”
“Absorbing…Jones writes dialogue that is realistic and sparkling, with an intuitive sense of how much to reveal and when.”
“[Jones] is fast defining middle-class black Atlanta the way Cheever did Westchester.”
“Impossible to put down until you find out how these sisters will discover their own versions of family.”
“Nakedly honest…Dazzlingly charged.”
“A tense, layered, and evocative tale…Jones explores the rivalry and connection of siblings, the meaning of beauty, the perils of young womanhood, the complexities of romantic relationships, and the contemporary African-American experience.”
“This is a heartbreaking story of two sisters, unknown to each other at first, who find and love each other for a short time in their lives.”
“[An] expansive third novel…Jones effectively blends the sisters’ varied, flawed perspectives as the characters struggle with presumptions of family and the unwieldy binds of love and identity.”
“Jones beautifully evokes Atlanta in the 1980s while creating gritty, imperfect characters whose pain lingers in the reader’s heart.”
“Tayari Jones’s immensely pleasurable new novel pulls off a minor miracle…Subtly exploring the power of labels…Jones crafts an affecting tale about things, big and small, we forfeit to forge a family. There are no winners in this empathetic and provocative story, only survivors.”
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