This story follows the family tree of an Asante family, beginning in the 18th century with Maame\u2019s two daughters, Esi and Effia, who experience radically different lives. One marries the English governor of Cape Coast Castle, while the other is held captive in the dungeons of that same castle. We then follow six more generations, in both Africa and the USA, bringing us to the present day. Closely intertwined with real historical events, the novel explores slavery and segregation, intelligently drawing parallels between life in the two countries and the difficulties of escaping the consequences of the colour of one\u2019s skin. Despite the harshness of its subject, this is a beautifully written novel that challenges our knowledge, assumptions, and beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marjorie nodded her head soberly. The day she was born, thirteen years ago, all the way across the Atlantic, her parents had mailed her umbilical cord to Old Lady so that the woman could put it into the ocean. It was Old Lady\u2019s only request, that if her son and daughter-in-law, both old themselves by the time they decided to get married and move to America, ever had a child they would send something of that child back to Ghana. This story follows the family tree of an Asante family, beginning in the 18th century with Maame\u2019s two daughters, Esi and Effia, who experience radically different lives. One marries the English governor of Cape Coast Castle, while the other is held captive in the dungeons of that same castle. We then follow six more generations, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291],"tags":[111,31,112],"class_list":["post-22352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-2026","tag-abuse","tag-family","tag-history"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/omoniyi-david-iB5yR0QbJqY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22352"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22419,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22352\/revisions\/22419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cOur family began here, in Cape Coast,\u201d Old Lady said. She pointed to the Cape Coast Castle. \u201cIn my dreams I kept seeing this castle, but I did not know why. One day, I came to these waters and I could feel the spirits of our ancestors calling to me. Some were free, and they spoke to me from the sand, but some others were trapped deep, deep, deep in the water so that I had to wade out to hear their voices. I waded out so far, the water almost took me down to meet those spirits that were trapped so deep in the sea that they would never be free. When they were living they had not known where they came from, and so dead, they did not know how to get to dry land. I put you in here so that if your spirit ever wandered, you would know where home was.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"