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A review by candacesiegle_greedyreader
Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton
3.0
Come on, we all love a juicy story about dysfunctional families--they make us feel so normal! Maud Newton goes raking through her family's past, unearthing some really awful stuff even in the last generation (her father would scratch out the faces of black children in books that shows Black and White kids playing together.) When most people read this, it will be hard to keep the look for horror off their faces between the unabashed white supremacists and the people locked up in county insane asylums for egregious behavior.
I feel for Maud, trying to reckon with all this. But she swerves way off the track when she starts writing about the practice of ancestor worship and how they can work to support us. She believes that we must atone for the our ancestors' deeds, a daunting thought and seemingly impossible task.
"Ancestor Trouble" is her journey. It covers a lot, so much that it is too much to take in. But it raises the question about whether we are responsible for our ancestors' acts, and if so, can we ever make it right.
I feel for Maud, trying to reckon with all this. But she swerves way off the track when she starts writing about the practice of ancestor worship and how they can work to support us. She believes that we must atone for the our ancestors' deeds, a daunting thought and seemingly impossible task.
"Ancestor Trouble" is her journey. It covers a lot, so much that it is too much to take in. But it raises the question about whether we are responsible for our ancestors' acts, and if so, can we ever make it right.