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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Leslie M. Scott-Jones’s Book Ends: Volume II follows novelist Quinn Miller and playwright Jacqueline “Jack” Scott, a couple rebuilding a relationship after years apart. Their life in Virginia changes when Jack discovers she is pregnant, giving them a chance at the family life they thought was behind them. As their daughter Walela arrives, Jack becomes involved in racial justice activism while Quinn grows fearful of the danger surrounding his work. His instinct to protect the woman he loves begins colliding with Jack’s determination to confront the world their child will inherit. Over the following years, that disagreement follows their marriage into a changing political climate, where unrest reaches their community. Quinn must decide whether loving Jack means accepting the risks she believes are inseparable from the life she has chosen.
Leslie M. Scott-Jones’s Book Ends is intimate literary fiction, with a lot of sharp social observation. I like Jack and her blunt humor, and once Quinn's guarded nature gradually started to give way, he grew on me too. The domestic conversations do the heavy lifting in the storytelling, showing how two people bring different histories into one household. The author makes this beautifully concrete when Onacona invites Quinn into a Cherokee sweat lodge and calls him 'E do da,' or father, placing family inside cultural belonging. Much later, the author turns Lou’s conversation with Quinn about raising Lela into a searching examination of masculinity in fatherhood. Readers of moving literary fiction will embrace the distinctive, affecting style of writing in this beautiful tale. Very highly recommended.
