The Furrows, Namwali Serpell
The Furrows, Namwali Serpell
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The Furrows

Author: Namwali Serpell

Narrator: Kristen Ariza, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Dion Graham

Unabridged: 8 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/27/2022


Synopsis

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award • One of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of the Year • Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize

“A triumph.”—New York Magazine

From one of the most celebrated new voices in American literature, a brilliantly inventive and “enthralling” (Oprah Daily) novel about the eternal bonds of family and the mysteries of love and loss—“already earning its author comparisons to Toni Morrison” (Lit Hub).

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Time, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Esquire, Vulture, Ms. Magazine, Vox, Mental Floss, BookPage, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly

I don’t want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.

Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother, Wayne, is seven. One day, when they’re alone together, there is an accident and Wayne is lost forever. His body is never recovered. The missing boy cleaves the family with doubt. Their father leaves, starts another family elsewhere. But their mother can’t give up hope and launches an organization dedicated to missing children. 

As C grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in bistros, airplane aisles, subway cars. Here is her brother’s face, the light in his eyes, the way he seems to recognize her, too. But it can’t be, of course. Or can it? Then one day, in another accident, C meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who is also searching for someone and for his own place in the world. His name is Wayne. 

Namwali Serpell’s remarkable new novel captures the uncanny experience of grief, the way the past breaks over the present like waves in the sea. The Furrows is a bold exploration of memory and mourning that twists unexpectedly into a story of mistaken identity, double consciousness, and the wishful—and sometimes willful—longing for reunion with those we’ve lost.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on May 06, 2025

Now a Shadow Twelve year old Cassandra tries in vain to save her seven year old brother Wayne from drowning. She passed out, did not actually see him die, and the body was never recovered. Still– “I felt him die. He was dead.” The irrefutable truth is this young girl’s burden to bear alone. Her mothe......more

Goodreads review by David on March 05, 2023

The Furrows is billed as a book about grief, and to some extent it is, but it is also much more than that. Serpell is very much interested in exploring memory and how our recollection of events can fracture - and how the stories we tell are built and rebuilt over time. I thought the first half was a......more

Goodreads review by Krista on April 29, 2022

Dear Wayne. You were moving along a groove, the one carved into the world for you. The morning was golden. The roads were as gray and smooth as the skin of sea-born creatures. At the crossroads, you were blindsided. You were as if blind and an immense force came at you from one side. As you stepp......more

Goodreads review by Lark on September 21, 2022

"I don't want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt. When I was twelve my little brother drowned." This is such a strong opening. I was immediately gripped. These three simple sentences hold out the promise of a harrowing, true read to come. Almost at once, though, the story let g......more

Goodreads review by Matt on December 17, 2023

Of all the books on the NYT's 10 best of 2022, The Furrows held the least appeal for me. The billing as an "experimental look into grief" sounded more like homework than an enjoyable reading experience. Well, consider me woefully bad at predicting what I'll like because The Furrows is one of my favo......more


Quotes

"A triumph . . . so visceral it leaves the reader breathless.”New York Magazine

“A novel that reclaims and refashions the genre of the elegy, charging it with as much eros as pathos.”The New Yorker

“With warmth and dexterity, Serpell has crafted a narrative that underscores how loss can show us the depths of our love.”Time

“Intimate . . . a miasmic journey through grief and identity, terror and uncertainty, that is finely and compellingly wrought.”Los Angeles Times

The Furrows is an English major’s dream date. Serpell taps influences across genres, from Virginia Woolf to Dashiell Hammett to Toni Morrison.”The Star Tribune

“Surreal and magical . . . confirms Serpell’s place as one of the most innovative and intelligent writers today.”Financial Times

“A wrenching examination of grief, memory, and reality . . .  Let this breathtaking novel roll over you in waves.”Esquire

“Is there anything more exciting than an artist in their prime? The Furrows follows Namwali Serpell’s tremendous debut . . . with an even more intimate, subversive novel . . .”Chicago Tribune

“A gorgeous, surreal meditation on identity and mourning, one that squeezes the heartstrings and rarely relaxes its grip.”Vulture

“A powerful exploration of grief, memory, and loss that becomes part of a larger story of Black identity and double consciousness.”—Poets & Writers

“Enthralling . . . Serpell [is] utterly unafraid to fuse and forge genres, turning up the levels of suspense, mystery, and even romance.”The A.V. Club

“This extraordinary new novel explores love, loss, and longing in new and unexpected ways.”Ms.

“[A] gorgeous new novel about grief, hope, and what W.E.B. Du Bois called ‘double consciousness.’”The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Already earning its author comparisons to Toni Morrison. . . Destined to end up on every Best of the Year list.”Lit Hub

“Serpell continues to expand the possibilities of what literature can accomplish.”—Booklist

“Stylistically refreshing and emotionally intense, cementing Serpell’s place among the best writers going.”Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A ghost story, a murder mystery, a thriller, a redemptive love story that never loses its knife edge of danger. A daring and masterful novel about how we respond to the mystery of death.”—Kiran Desai
 
“A genuine tour de force.”—Jonathan Lethem

“A piercing, sharply written novel about the conjuring power of loss."—Raven Leilani

“Riveting.”—Tracy K. Smith
  
“A triumph, a book that succeeds brilliantly in reconfiguring and retuning itself.”—Jamel Brinkley
 
“Thrilling [in] its ability to constantly surprise and keep us on the edge of our seats.”—Maaza Mengiste
 
“Who could have imagined that a novel about loss and long grieving could be so soaring, so sexy, so luminously beautiful and poetic.”—Neel Mukherjee

“A deeply felt novel that deserves to be read.”—Nicole Dennis-Benn