![]() We Love You, Charlie Freeman is a masterful meditation on race, anthropology, history, and the hurly-burly complications of family. “Kaitlyn Greenidge’s debut novel reminds us that it is an exciting time to be reading fiction. “This is an allegory that pays tribute to Ellison, to Morrison, to Wideman and Doctorow, and it is every bit as necessary and provocative as Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist.” -Colum McCann This “important debut from an important writer”* is ultimately an exploration of language, race, and history. Narrated primarily by Laurel’s teenage daughter, Charlotte, the story goes back in time to the founding of the institute, in the 1920s, revealing shocking past experiments. They’ve been hired by a private research institute to teach sign language to a chimpanzee who will live as part of their family. ![]() ![]() This ability eventually leads Laurel to uproot her husband and daughters from their overeducated and underpaid life in the South End of Boston for the bucolic Massachusetts countryside, where the Freemans are to take part in an experiment. ![]() “Kaitlyn Greenidge’s debut novel slips a very skillful knife under the skin of American life. This is a story about family, about language, about history and its profound echoes.” -Colum McCannįrustrated by the limitations of cross-race communication in her predominantly white town, Laurel, a young African American girl, teaches herself to sign-a skill she later imparts to her two daughters. ![]()
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May 2023
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