The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

In Part 2’s preceding “Song” section, Samuel Pinchard appears as a frighteningly mysterious character; the uncertainty surrounding where he came from and why he suddenly showed up at Micco’s farm creates an air of danger around him. Jeffers eventually reveals more about his past, but not until much later in the novel. Structurally, the pattern of introducing a character or event from a limited perspective only to later fill in the gaps is one Jeffers uses throughout the novel; she does the same thing with Lydia’s multiple disappearances in Part 2. In this way, Jeffers maintains elements of mystery that propel the reader through the novel’s long page count. She also models the process of historical research, filling in the gaps of an existing record. This process is important both in the narrative and metatextually; for both Jeffers and the novel’s characters, history provides a sense of identity and community, but the scarcity of written records documenting enslaved people’s lives necessitates a degree of guesswork.

Both storylines in Part 2 portray women of color who have deeply internalized the racism targeting their communities. Mahala, Micco’s wife, tries to hide her Indigenous American blood whenever possible and seeks out white enclaves like trading posts and slave auctions. Similarly, Nana Claire gleefully recounts the times she passed for white in the still-segregated South. Both of these women eventually learn that loving and admiring white society does not gain one entrance into it, though Mahala learns this in a more forcefully devastating way than Nana Claire.

While the novel explores many kinds of trauma, it also explores many kinds of joy, especially the joy Ailey and her family members take in the legacies of great Black artists and intellectuals. Jeffers peppers Ailey’s family history with appearances from such people, including Du Bois, novelist Jessie Fauset, and novelist/sociologist Zora Neale Hurston. She invokes the spirit of possibility that animated the Harlem Renaissance of the early 20th century, when the children and grandchildren of former slaves expressed themselves and connected with each other in masterful works of writing, even while the nation at large was still mired in the terror of Jim Crow.

A less pleasant theme that emerges in Part 2 is the prevalence of abuse and mistreatment of women. The most glaring instance of this theme is Gandee’s abuse of Lydia and Ailey, but Chris’s treatment of Ailey, while much less crushing, is not respectful. He uses Ailey as a secret backup girlfriend so that he can have both the girl he is attracted to and the girl who gives him social clout at his mostly white high school. His disrespect for Ailey extends so far that he does not even realize how insulting it is to ask her to be his public girlfriend only after his white girlfriend dumps him. All of the novel’s central women experience mistreatment and abuse at the hands of men.