“Life and Other Love Songs” by Atlanta author Anissa Gray is a heartfelt family saga centered around a Detroit family that excavates multiple layers of trauma — and the generational impact of abuse — as they struggle to claim their piece of the American Dream.
Spanning from the 1960s to the early ‘90s, with a dip back to Jim Crow Alabama, “Life and Other Love Songs” begins with a missing father and explores his family’s journey to reconcile his disappearance when they’re left grasping at secrets.
“Absence was not the same as death,” Trinity Armstead says in the book’s prologue while attending her father’s funeral in 1989 — seven years after he vanished without a trace on his 37th birthday. During that time Trinity and her mother Deborah exist in limbo not knowing what became of him. They can’t mourn and can’t move on. And they don’t know how to interpret his emotional distance in the months preceding his disappearance.
Daniel Ozro “Oz” Armstead Junior is a haunted man. In a fluid weaving of timelines and perspectives, Gray reveals how Oz fled Alabama at 17 and settled in Detroit after his father’s death. Determined to “go to work in a suit and tie and have some say in how things were done,” he spends hours beating the Southern inflection out of his vowels and looks forward to being the first in his family to attend college. Oz diligently records his goals and aspirations in a notebook and saves his money for the future.
Deborah is a vivacious and talented singer intent on becoming a Motown star. She’s never met a boy like Oz before, and they form a quick bond based on dreams of a future they’re both excited to work toward. But as Oz creates the life he strategized in his notebooks, he finds the ghosts of his past aren’t receding, they’re claiming him. Gray begins layering in the long-term consequences of generational trauma through Oz’s personality shift. Once supportive of Deborah’s aspirations, he now wants her at home with their baby — not on the road performing for other men.
This is devastating for Deborah, who’s forced to succumb to the constraints of marriage and motherhood. Oz believes by providing a comfortable, middle-class existence, he’s giving her all she needs. But Deborah believes she can achieve her dreams while still caring for her home and family. Losing Oz’s support sends her spiraling and their marriage suffers terribly. Her unhappiness spreads into her relationship with Trinity as Deborah’s behavior becomes increasingly unstable.
Embarrassed by her mother, Trinity grows into a straightforward girl with a frank sense of humor. After a long road trip, she describes her own appearance as “an aging hooker who’d had a particularly bad night.” Her forthright nature is endearing as she wades through life confused by her own sense of alienation — from others as much as herself.
It’s through Deborah and Trinity’s mother-daughter relationship that Gray delivers a break in the cycle of abuse and oppression. They both endure a similar trial after conceiving children, but where Deborah’s struggle is born from trauma, Trinity’s is a result of her own choice that serves to move her life forward.
A number of parallels are drawn between the experiences of the parents and that of their children. Oz is determined not to inflict damage from his past on his wife and child and is shocked when he starts emulating unsavory aspects of his father’s behavior as a result of his unresolved past. Oz and his brother share similarities in the ways they process their childhood trauma, albeit with totally different outcomes. And Oz’s father died on his 37th birthday, while Oz disappears on his.
“Life and Other Love Songs” conveys its message through scenes more than internal thoughts or exposition. The topics Gray delves into — physical and sexual abuse of women and children, abortion, homophobic acts of violence — are tough to address and she touches upon them with impact and sensitivity. Foregoing graphic depictions and language, she relies instead on conversation, reflections on the past and, most importantly, behavior to convey how the hardships the Armstead family endure alters their treatment of each other. By focusing on the outward manifestation of internalized trauma, Gray delivers her ultimate message with a fantastic crescendo.
Gray employs a unique technique in her storytelling by revealing the end result of a scenario first, then the action that led to it, producing a surprising affect. For example, with no previous mention of a bird in the narrative, Trinity observes: “My eyes drifted to the edge of the backyard and the place where the bird was buried.” She goes on to reveal her experience with the bird that led to its death. This happens numerous times and initially seems to dilute the tension propelling the scene forward. But when Gray begins to unravel her climactic action, having delivered slow and teasing droplets throughout the narrative that aren’t laid bare until the end, the suspense hits with a punch.
As the Armstead family journeys to uncover why Oz disappeared and understand the source of his haunting, each character discovers how interconnected they truly are and how important processing the past is to achieve a better future. While “Life and Other Love Songs” doesn’t wrap up in a tidy bow, Anissa Gray delivers in a clear and lyrical voice that with honesty and love, there is hope for a better tomorrow.
FICTION
by Anissa Gray
Berkley
336 pages, $27
