Rating: 4.00 (1 ratings)
First published 1998
Nathan Price packs his wife and four daughters into a mission bound for the Belgian Congo in 1959. The fierce Baptist preacher believes he can bring Scripture and salvation to Africa, but the Price women quickly discover that nothing from their American life works as expected. The garden seeds won't grow in foreign soil. The local people resist Nathan's rigid sermons. His wife Orleanna watches helplessly as her husband's zealotry threatens to destroy their family. Each daughter responds differently to their new world, but all must navigate the growing tension between their father's uncompromising faith and the reality of life in postcolonial Africa. Over thirty years, the Price family fractures and rebuilds itself as political upheaval transforms the Congo around them. This is the story of women finding their voices in a place where everything they once knew proves useless.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, african-literature, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Belgium, Congo, United States
Period: 1959, 1980s
546 pages · Paperback · Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Content warnings: colonialism