Review: Everyman
Everyman by M Shelly ConnerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book has a flavor of Toni Morrison though with brevity and style that reminds me of Alice Walker (more Meridian than The Color Purple). It also has a particularly interesting vibe when thinking about the story in the context of the last few years as well as the rise of DNA tracking. Eve Mann is trying to find her roots, particularly her mother, Mercy. Raised by her aunt, Ann Man in the North in the 1960s and early 1970s, she has never been able to get from her the truth about her mom and much of her family. At 22, she sets off on a pilgrimage to go to the town in Georgia named, Ideal. The story is so very little about Eve going to find her family and more about the stories and experiences that led Eve to arrive there. Conner weaves together these different threads into a tapestry that captures the power of racism, naming, and kin. It's definitely the kind of story that one finds themselves less interested in the overarching plot and more in the relations of people and the cascade effects decisions and views from generations ago impact how one moves through the world.
In many ways, this novel is a rebuttal to rather than a reinterpretation to the famous "Everyman" play (a morality play of the 15th century) to which it appears named and modeled. Conner's work moves beyond the idea of the good deeds of men and their ascension to heaven and reflects the desperate and complicated measures the people must face--specifically Black people, in a culture that has time and again done harm to them. There is an impossibility of escaping some elements of complicity and that is something we all (like Eve) must face.
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