“A full encompassing family story of three generations making peace with their heritage, the essence of who they are and ultimately, how does that then fit within the cultural streamlines of white America.”
Rafaella, Ruth and Daisy – three women with expectations, secrets, resentments and yet linked by kin and kind to draw each other and ‘speak to each of home’.
From 1950s Puerto Rico to Mid-Western USA and then suburban New York to return full circle to the place where their roots were established.
Powerful, confronting new novel from the author of American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins must now receive the recognition for her cross-culture narrative that has been denied to her until now (after undeserved controversy and backlash to her book American Dirt). She takes her life’s experiences and floods each page with honesty and a reflective lens to tell the tale she deeply needs to through her engaging array of characters.
Speak To Me is not weighed heavily with themes of racism but instead, woven through beautiful descriptive phrasing that firmly plants you in the cultural vibrancy of Puerto Rico. We gain understanding of what it is really like to be uprooted from all that is familiar.
Superb unmissable read that left an imprint in my mind and a worthy winner of my number one read for 2025.
Sue Reid
Read By Reid NZ
Hachette Publishers
ISBN 9781472288813