Praise for The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and other Essential Ghosts

Like the West African folktales upon which the family relies, the novel highlights the power of story and myth to engage, teach, and soothe—and the enduring power of West African folklore in the diaspora.

The long and winding name of this assertive debut matches the magnitude of the stories within, which draw on folklore to capture the dynamic between two sisters, Zora and Sasha Porter. Their mother’s illness and their father’s violence has fractured their relationship, but their bond is reforged as an old family secret—and a surrounding cache of remarkable tales—roars to the surface.

Palmer weaves folktales and magical realism in her moving debut . . . This will stick with readers.

In wild, firecracker prose, Palmer whirls the reader into a realm where the real and unreal are constantly changing places. It’s a stunning feat of storytelling in itself.

In homage to the folktales that began in Africa, and took on new shapes in the Caribbean, The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts resists the expectation to linger over motivation, abandoning literary fiction’s 'why' to spotlight Afro-Caribbean folklore’s 'what' . . . [the novel] vividly conveys a multitude of profound emotional experiences that exist as squares of fabric: some are already joined by the bold seam of cause and effect, while others exist separately but for the thread of inference. With this debut, the author invites us to view long-held traditions in storytelling anew, and to meditate on why they endure. Troubling subjects and compelling questions abound. Nevertheless, much like those who have recounted the lore of Anansi and the rolling calf through the ages, Palmer trusts the capacity of the narrative to bear the weight of all things said and unsaid.

Palmer imbues her novel with both snappy pacing and deep feeling in a lovely prose voice with music and poetry behind it. The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts has big things to say about sisterhood and family; race, sexuality and class; life and death; and above all, the power of storytelling . . . The result is wide-ranging and thought-provoking—but also an immersive and sumptuous read. Palmer shines.