Books like Let Us Descend
12 books with a reading profile close to Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward. Inward-looking; a moderate read.
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1
The World That We Knew
history, narrative
In 1941 Berlin, Hanni Kohn seeks to protect her daughter, Lea, from the rising Nazi threat by commissioning the creation of a golem named Ava.
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2
Memphis
Also inward-looking · history, narrative
Spanning three generations of a Black family in Memphis, Tennessee, this novel centers on the women of one family, who must handle poverty, domestic violence and racism while keeping alive a sense of faith and creativit…
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3
The Water Dancer
narrative, literary
Hiram Walker is born into bondage on a Virginia plantation, the son of an enslaved woman and the white man who owns them both.
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4
The Kite Runner
Also inward-looking · history, narrative
Set in Kabul during the final years of the Afghan monarchy, the story follows Amir, a privileged boy who fails to intervene when his loyal friend and servant, Hassan, is brutally assaulted after a kite-fighting tourname…
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5
Demon Copperhead
Also inward-looking · history, narrative
In the mountains of southern Appalachia, a boy nicknamed Demon Copperhead is born to a teenage mother in a single-wide trailer.
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6
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman
Also inward-looking · narrative, literary
When a middle-aged man returns to his childhood home for a funeral, he wanders to the neighboring farmhouse where he met Lettie Hempstock decades earlier.
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7
The Deep
narrative, literary
Inspired by a song by the group clipping., this novella follows the wajinru, water-breathing descendants of pregnant African women thrown overboard during the Atlantic slave trade.
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8
Of Women and Salt
Also inward-looking · history, narrative
Spanning from nineteenth-century Cuban cigar factories to a modern-day detention center in Texas, the narrative follows five generations of women linked by blood and migration.
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9
The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett
Also inward-looking · history, narrative
In the small town of Mallard, Louisiana, the light-skinned Vignes twins, Desiree and Stella, grow up in a community that prizes fair complexions.
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10
The Night Watch
by Sarah Waters
Also inward-looking · history, narrative
Set in London during and immediately after the Second World War, the narrative moves backward in time from 1947 to 1941.
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11
The Covenant of Water
history, narrative
Spanning seven decades in Kerala, South India, the narrative follows three generations of a family afflicted by a peculiar medical condition known as the Condition.
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12
The Storm We Made
by Vanessa Chan
history, narrative
In 1930s British Malaya, Cecily Alcantara works as a low-level clerk while feeling the sting of colonial hierarchy.
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