Gosh, where to start with this book.
Tangleroot opens with Noni being forced to give an opening speech to introduce her mother, Radiance, as the new president of Stonepost college, but the speech has been edited because Radiance is pushing to have the college renamed after their ancestor, Cuffee Fortune, who built and opened the college. Noni isn’t able to finish the speech and accidentally hot mics her mom when she reiterates that she didn’t want to the speech. Radiance is a force, and she’s doing a lot to dictate what she thinks is the best path for Noni, not ever seeming to listen when Noni talks about her passion for costume design. When they move to Tangleroot, a former plantation that their ancestors were enslaved at, Noni happens across the cemetery where the Dearborns, the white enslavers, were buried and finds the headstone for Sophronia Dearborn and infant son, which starts her down a path of trying to learn who this person was and what happened because they share a first name and birthdate. But because her mother refuses to give any attention to more white people and her focus is particularly on Cuffee’s story and broadly on the Black histories that are forgotten, Noni doesn’t feel she’s able to talk to her mom about what she’s researching, or as things start to get out of her control.
This was a really great story of family secrets and small town “everyone knows except the person affected” “secrets,” as well as the importance of community and how stories and memories are kept alive in oral histories. I also really liked how there are several instances where, when hard and painful things come up that people want to brush under the rug, Noni asks why they don’t want to talk about it when it happened. Really pushes home the importance of how we can’t just pretend the terrible things didn’t happen, and that those terrible things don’t still have an impact on current history.
I also had a lot of fun with figuring out who Sophie was and Noni’s family history. Not all the revelations were pleasant, but I think it did a lot of good things with, like, challenging the mythical purity of white southern belles and how complicit white women were in the horrors experienced by and perpetuated against enslaved Black people. I do think some of it definitely did the thing where connections are made to fit the story, but I still enjoyed seeing all the connections come together. The ending was also super comforting and beautiful, and really brought things full circle. All around this was an excellent story and even when Noni was making questionable choices, I couldn’t stop rooting for her. The family secrets and figuring out the family history was one of my favorite parts, especially how much Noni learned by talking to people and finding recordings or transcripts of first hand accounts. Tangleroot does so many things in how Noni, Radiance, Sophie, and Cuffee’s stories are told that I found it impossible to put down once it hit its stride.