Charmaine Wilkerson's powerful second novel, Good Dirt, explores the lasting effects of a long-ago tragedy and its connection to a beloved family heirloom. Through the history of the Freeman family and the provenance of a handmade pottery jar affectionately known as "Old Mo," Wilkerson (Black Cake) considers family secrets, race and respectability politics, the long-term nature of childhood trauma, and the complexity of American history.
The well-off Freeman family has deep roots in New England: both in Refuge County, Mass., and more recently on the Connecticut coast, where Ed and Isabella, known as Soh, live with their children, Baz and Ebby. On an autumn day in the year 2000, two armed burglars break into their house to find the children at home unexpectedly. The encounter results in Baz's murder; Old Mo is shattered into fragments, and 10-year-old Ebby experiences a trauma that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Wilkerson continues her narrative years later with a different kind of tragedy, as Ebby's wealthy white fiancé, Henry, fails to show up for their wedding. Heartbroken and humiliated, Ebby later flees to France, where a friend offers to host her and asks Ebby to manage the estate's guest cottage. The first guests are Henry and his new girlfriend, forcing Ebby to interact with the man she loved and lost, and Henry to confront his own guilt and inadequacies.
Wilkerson then reaches back a few centuries to explore the Freemans' connection to pottery-making, stretching back to an unnamed African village. The narrative follows Moses, who becomes a skilled potter in South Carolina, and his brother-in-law, Willis, who eventually works his way north to freedom. The jar, made under enslavement, holds more history than even Ebby and her parents can guess, and Wilkerson excavates some of that history through the stories of Moses, Willis, and their descendants.
In the present day, Ebby begins to ask questions about Old Mo and the circumstances of its attempted theft, as she reckons with the pain Henry caused her and the lingering trauma from Baz's death. Ed and Soh, too, have their own questions to sit with and their actions to consider. Wilkerson probes the layers of each family member's connection to the jar; their deep love for one another and fierce pride in their heritage; and the guilt they all carry, logical or not, relating to Baz's death. Even as they continue to bear their losses, Ebby and her parents find redemption and hope in unexpected places.
Layered and complex, Wilkerson's novel brilliantly sculpts a story of quiet resistance, skilled craftsmanship, and dedication to family and freedom. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Charmaine Wilkerson's powerful second novel explores family, resistance, and skilled craftsmanship through the story of a handmade jar known as "Old Mo."