Wandering in Strange Lands, Morgan Jerkins
Wandering in Strange Lands, Morgan Jerkins
List: $23.99 | Sale: $16.79
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Wandering in Strange Lands
A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots

Author: Morgan Jerkins

Narrator: Morgan Jerkins

Unabridged: 8 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 08/04/2020


Synopsis

One of Buzzfeed's 24 New Books We Couldn’t Put Down“One of the smartest young writers of her generation.”—Book RiotFrom the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing—a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with”—comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.Between 1916 and 1970, six million black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest in a movement known as The Great Migration. But while this event transformed the complexion of America and provided black people with new economic opportunities, it also disconnected them from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity, argues Morgan Jerkins. In this fascinating and deeply personal exploration, she recreates her ancestors’ journeys across America, following the migratory routes they took from Georgia and South Carolina to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and California. 
Following in their footsteps, Jerkins seeks to understand not only her own past, but the lineage of an entire group of people who have been displaced, disenfranchised, and disrespected throughout our history. Through interviews and hundreds of pages of transcription, Jerkins braids the loose threads of her family’s oral histories, which she was able to trace back 300 years, with the insights and recollections of black people she met along the way—the tissue of black myths, customs, and blood that connect the bones of American history. 
Incisive and illuminating, Wandering in Strange Lands is a timely and enthralling look at America’s past and present, one family’s legacy, and a young black woman’s life, filtered through her sharp and curious eyes.


About Morgan Jerkins

Morgan Jerkins is the author of Caul Baby, Wandering in Strange Lands, and the New York Times bestseller This Will Be My Undoing. Jerkins has taught at Columbia and Princeton Universities, and has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and the Guardian, among many others. She lives in Brooklyn.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sue on June 19, 2020

Morgan Jerkins had heard her family’s many stories and histories throughout her life but over time she began to wonder how those tales, folk sayings, etc might relate to the reality of her background. Just who were her “people?” By tracing the Great Migration in reverse and tracking specific parts o......more

Goodreads review by Lilli on February 16, 2022

"No one spoke about the past—the goal was to move forward and never look back." Morgan Jerkins, an up-and-coming young Black writer from New Jersey, didn't know the full extent of her family history. Like many Black Americans, she knew she had roots in the South and ancestors who were enslaved in thi......more

Goodreads review by BookOfCinz on April 30, 2020

I was seven years old when I learned that I wasn't my father's only daughter This is the line that opens Morgan Jerkins sophomore novel and sets us up for a historical look into her family tree. Morgan sets out to understand more about her family's history, where they came from, why they left and......more

Actual Rating: 4.5 stars Thanks to Libro.FM for providing me with the audiobook for this one! It's read by the author and fantastic. Wandering in Strange Lands is part memoir/family history, part ethnography as the author traces the Great Migration back to specific Black communities in the United Sta......more