Trinity A novel

Lockhart (Fifth Born) chronicles a family's generational trauma and a spiritual intervention in her intense latest. Benjamin and Lenard Lee are raised in 1940s Mississippi, where they work as field hands for their abusive father, Old Deddy. Their mother, Lottie, tells Benjamin when he's 13 of her plans to leave and earn enough money to rescue the brothers from their father. Angry and distraught, Benjamin shoots and kills her. The boys' paths diverge from there: Lenard eventually follows their half brother James to Missouri and becomes a teacher, while Benjamin, now a Korean War veteran, repeats Old Deddy's abuse on his wife and their son, B.J. Later, B.J. leaves to fight in Vietnam, a war he survives but which wreaks havoc on his psyche and his ability to connect with his wife, Sheila. The Lees' pain is witnessed by a generations-old spirit, which has also seen their ancestors' enslavement. When B.J. and Sheila have a daughter, Lottie Rebecca, the spirit is born with her. Lottie Rebecca's precocious wisdom makes it difficult for her to bond with others until a cathartic trip to her great-grandparents' Mississippi home, which reveals to her the best way to begin healing the family's wounds. Lockhart skillfully untangles the long-term effects of violence, trauma, and the history of enslavement on the family. This is not to be missed. (July)

From the time she's 6 years old, Lottie Rebecca Lee, the namesake of both her grandmother and great-grandmother, is haunted by the spirits of seven generations of ancestors as she struggles to make sense of her family's intergenerational trauma. From a young age, Lottie Rebecca says, she knew that what she "was experiencing about living and what other people were experiencing were different dimensions of remembering." Lottie Rebecca's visions begin with her great-great-great grandmother's capture by slave traders in the Congo and move on to the hot Mississippi tobacco fields where her grandfather Bennie grew up under the violent hand of his father, "Old Deddy," and his desperate mother, Lottie, who danced at Mr. Genorette's tavern as she tried to save enough money to escape their plight. Lottie Rebecca also observes the experiences of Bennie and his son, B.J., her father, during the Korean and Vietnam wars and the hidden battles with PTSD, violence, and addiction that follow them home. Tracing the family's trauma through the decades and the path to healing through storytelling, the novel recalls Octavia Butler's Kindred in its innovative approach to time and its rendering of history in ways that are immediate to the modern reader and Toni Morrison's Beloved in its exploration of haunting, trauma, and family identity. The novel seems to embody the past more fully than it does the present, though, and as a result loses some of its narrative power as it arrives at its hopeful yet somewhat attenuated conclusion. While the novel does remain cohesive, more of the urgency that characterized its beginning would have propelled it from being very good to great. A challenging yet inspiring portrait of the resilience of Black families. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.