Things past telling : a novel / Sheila Williams.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"This is a truly character-driven novel that explores how people define themselves, the creation of family and home, and the importance of memory and language. . . . Fans of historical epics won't be able to put this book down."--Historical Novel Society

"Emotionally satisfying. . . . A remarkable character portrait."--Publishers Weekly

The author of The Secret Women tells the story of a brave and enduring woman as indomitable as Ernest Gaines' legendary Miss Jane Pittman, in a breathtaking novel that combines the epic romance and adventure of Outlander, the sweeping drama of Roots, and the haunting historical power of Barracoon.

Things Past Telling is a remarkable historical epic that charts one unforgettable woman's journey across an ocean of years as vast as the Atlantic that will forever separate her from her homeland.

Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Grace--a.k.a "Momma Grace" will live a long, wondrous life marked by hardship, oppression, opportunity, and love. Though she will be "gifted" various names, her birth name is known to her alone. Over the course of 100-plus years, she survives capture, enslavement by several property owners, the Atlantic crossing when she is only eleven years of age, and a brief stint as a pirate's ward, acting as both a spy and a translator.

Maryam learns midwifery from a Caribbean-born wise woman, whose "craft" combines curated techniques and medicines from African, Indigenous, and European women. Those midwifery skills allow her to sometimes transcend the racial and class barriers of her enslavement, as she walks the razor's edge trying to balance the lives and health of her own people with the cruel economic mandates of the slave holders, who view infants born in bondage not as flesh-and-blood children but as investment property.

Throughout her triumphant and tumultuous life Maryam gains and loses her homeland, her family, her culture, her husband, her lovers, and her children. Yet as the decades pass, this tenacious woman never loses her sense of self.

Inspired by a 112-year-old woman the author discovered in an 1870 U.S. Federal census report for Ohio, loosely based on the author's real-life female ancestors, spanning more than a hundred years, from the mid-eighteen-century to the end of America's Civil War, and spanning across the globe, from what is now southern Nigeria to the islands of the Caribbean to North America and the land bordering the Ohio River, Things Past Telling is a breathtaking story of a past that lives on in all of us, and a life that encompasses the best--and worst--of our humanity.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

At the heart of this epic is Maryam Prescilla Grace--a.k.a Momma Grace, though she alone knows her birth name--who was born in West Africa in the mid-1700s, captured at age 11, and after the Atlantic crossing enslaved by numerous owners. Having learned midwifery from a Caribbean-born wise woman whose skills blended the practices of African, Indigenous, and European women, Mama Grace lives in delicate balance as she provides her service to both her owners and her community, and she endures, breathtakingly, for more than 100 years. Williams was inspired by the story of a 112-year-old woman she discovered in an 1870 U.S. Federal census report for Ohio and also draws on her own real-life ancestors. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Publishers Weekly Review

The resilience of family and the importance of memory loom large in this emotionally satisfying tale from Williams (The Secret Women) , inspired by the life of an African woman who lived to be 112. Maryam Priscilla Grace never forgets her home in Edo after she's kidnapped at 10, in 1769, and taken across the ocean. Before the ship can off-load its captives in Savannah, the pirate Caesar seizes it and frees all those onboard. Caesar brings Maryam to his home off the coast of Florida, where she remains with his family for five years and learns the practice of midwifery. Then, after a British vessel captures Caesar's ship when Maryam is with him on a raid, she's sold to a Virginia plantation owner. She works primarily as a midwife, but is forced out to the fields whenever she's not tending a patient. Maryam meets James, enslaved on a neighboring farm, and the two marry in 1781 and raise two sons, though James and the boys are later sold to pay off a debt, setting in motion a series of harrowing changes in her life over which she has little control. Facing heartbreaking compromises as she starts a new family, and life-threatening dangers while helping runaways, Maryam ​nevertheless ​doesn't give up on recreating her lost family. Throughout, Williams offers vivid descriptions and sticks to the historical timeline without making the narrative feel didactic. It's a remarkable character portrait. Agent: Matt Bailer, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Mar.)

Booklist Review

Born in West Africa in 1758, Maryam is the overlooked middle child. At age 10, she is abducted by slave traders, but outside Jamaica, a pirate named Caesar captures the ship, freeing all of the captives on board. Caesar takes Maryam under his wing, keeping her safe as she learns healing and midwifery, but when Caesar's ship is captured, his crew--including Maryam--are enslaved. Maryam's knowledge and skills do not protect her from the indignities of slavery. Many years later, Maryam lives in Ohio with her daughter and her grandchildren when a visitor from Texas arrives with information that brings her story full circle. Williams (The Secret Women, 2020) drew inspiration from her own family's background for this sweeping historical epic. Though Williams is unsparing in her depictions of the horrors that Maryam faces throughout her life, the overall feel of the novel is uplifting and hopeful. Maryam's story is one of tenacity and resistance, through actions both everyday and extraordinary, and her struggle for survival is inspiring. Readers who enjoy Lalita Tademy will be drawn into this vividly imagined novel.

Kirkus Book Review

Freed from slavery, an indomitable woman narrates her century of life. This sweeping novel begins with its narrator, Momma Grace, living in Ohio with her family five years after the end of the Civil War. She's a formerly enslaved woman, at least a century old, and she has a remarkable story to tell. She begins at the beginning, with her golden childhood in West Africa, an idyll cut short when slave traders kidnap the girl called Little Bird and one of her older sisters. Williams skillfully gives the reader a child's-eye view of the confusion and cruelty of being marched for days to be loaded onto a ship for the Middle Passage. But Little Bird's life soon takes another surprising turn, one that will be largely good luck for her. The ship is raided by a pirate crew led by a formerly enslaved captain called Caesar, and he quickly notices Little Bird's facility for languages. Renamed Maryam, she becomes his translator and spy, and also, on a remote island where his crew's families live, she becomes apprentice to a midwife and healer. That luck doesn't hold; after a few years she ends up in the slave markets and begins a long life of bondage. The skills she learned on Caesar's island make her particularly valuable--when she's sent to deliver babies, White and Black, and to treat the sick, it's the slave master who collects the pay for her services. As she is sold from one plantation to another, she forms warm friendships and romances, even marrying once (although it's illegal for the enslaved to marry). She has several children and, one way or another, loses most of them--some of them sold away by her enslavers, who see their slaves' children as commodities. Momma Grace's story is often a brutal one, but it's full of adventure and romance, courage and resilience. It's no apologia for slavery but a moving portrait of its fully human victims. A woman tells of her long, rich life and the terrible impact upon her of slavery. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.