Even though she has not lived in her hometown for more than a decade, most of her writing centers on the urban South. Tayari Jones was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia where (with the exception of one year in Nigeria) she spent most of her childhood. The Big Read: Tayari Jones on Silver Sparrow, with James Hannaham (Brooklyn Public Library video) As Jones explores the backstories of her rich and flawed characters, she also reveals the joy, and the destruction, they brought to each other's lives.Īt the heart of it all are two girls whose lives are at stake, and like the best writers, Jones portrays the fragility of her characters with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women.Ī Conversation with Tayari Jones is used with permission from Algonquin Books. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. When Witherspoon's daughters from each family meet, they form a friendship, but only one of them knows they are sisters. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta during the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's families-the public one and the secret one. "My father, James Witherspoon is a bigamist," is the opening line of Silver Sparrow, a novel written by Tayari Jones that unveils a breathtaking story about a man's deception, a family's complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle. "I think of it as a sort of meditation, a way that we can connect simultaneously to ourselves and to something larger than ourselves." -from the blog post "Writing Rituals: Green Leaves - A Daily Writing Prayer" Jones is the recipient of a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
“Jones explores the rivalry and connection of siblings, the meaning of beauty, the perils of young womanhood, the complexities of romantic relationships and the contemporary African-American experience.” It is “impossible to put down until you find out how these sisters will discover their own versions of family” ( Los Angeles Times).
The novel is a “layered and evocative tale,” writes the Star Tribune. The girls have separate lives and different last names, but when they happen to meet and form a friendship, it’s just a matter of time before the tension breaks and hard discoveries are made. It tells the story of two teenage girls who are sisters but only one knows it, as their father has kept one family public, the other a secret.
National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellow Tayari Jones was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where her third novel, Silver Sparrow, is set during the 1980s. This title will no longer be available for programming after the 2020-21 grant year.
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