Tomorrow is Shelby Cole’s wedding – to a white man. Shelby is Black, even if she is very light-skinned, and this interracial marriage creates tensions within her family and the wealthy Black community of Martha’s Vineyard. As the story unfolds, we go back into the past and discover the history of Shelby’s family, from its humble beginnings to becoming a wealthy and respected family. Complicated love stories, interracial relationships, the pressure to appear happy and successful, the legacy of slavery, and the hope for a better future for the next generations all play a part. I found the book interesting, particularly the way it moves through the different generations of the family and shows how their past continues to influence the present. I was also quite surprised by the ending – it took me a little by surprise.
“Shelby, it all comes down to how well you really think you know Meade. No one else can answer that question for you. Because if you don’t know someone all that well, you react to their surface qualities, the superficial stereotypes they throw off like sparks. Lute equals black, Meade equals white. But once you fight through the sparks and get to the person, you find just that, a person, a big jumble of likes, dislikes, fears, and desires. Trying to figure what a man is going to think or do based on the color of his skin will tell you as much about you as it will about him. Look at Gram. Until I married Line and had the baby, I never thought of her as white, you see. She was just Gram. I still don’t, except when her rejection of my child throws the fact in my face. You don’t think of people you know as white unless they remind you, any more than you think of yourself as colored unless a white person reminds you.”