The Peach Seed is a loving story of family, of life-defining choices, personal failure and redemption all tied together by little carved peach “seed” monkeys. It’s kind of a a coming of age in old age story. It is around 2015. Fletcher Dukes, widowed father of three adult daughters, grew up in Albany, Georgia. In his youth, the town drew the attention of Martin Luther King, Jr. when the local police chief unlawfully arrested protesters and squirreled them away in secret jails outside of town so his jail was always empty. Fletcher, his sister Olga and his long gone high school sweetheart Altovise Benson were active in the civil rights movement of the early sixties. He envisioned a life with Altovise, but she was committed to leaving Albany for college and what turned out to be a successful career as a singer. And now, fifty years later– she’s back.
At the same time, somewhere in Michigan, Siman, a middle-aged man adopted at birth, is slowly researching the origin of his little monkey carved from a peach pit (the peach seed). It has diamond eyes. It was a gift from his birth mother, that came with instructions to follow a tradition to give it to him on his 13th birthday. His parents have died. His sister urges him to find his birth mother, the thoughtful woman who left open this door to his past.
Somewhere in the early 1800s, Malik, a teenaged pirogue maker from Senegal is kidnapped when he goes to the city to sell one of his boats. He is a gifted carver and he carries this gift to his place of enslavement in the United States, His story is of loss and of making a future. It is one of coming of age more than once. Partly it is about a small carved peach seed monkey and its impact on generations to come.
And back to present day we find messiness. Bo-D, Fletcher’s nephew in need of a father figure is never called “son” by Fletcher, who is a kind but also kind of rigid guy. He always wanted a son and he mentored Bo-D but found it frustrating as Fletcher, a recovering alcoholic, cannot deal with Bo-D’s addiction to pills. Bo-D has a three year old daughter he tries to parent with her mother Indicca, but his addiction and accompanying behaviors get in the way. His mother, Florida, looks after her dad, drinks heavily, and works. And they all make mistakes that hurt one another while clearly loving each other dearly.
Jones is a gifted writer and this is a highly engaging story, well crafted with characters I connected to. For me, it was a couldn’t put it down book. The first in a while. Highly recommend.
They Called me Bookworm 