Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree - The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors

Summary (from the publisher): Best-selling author Lisa Alther chronicles her search for missing branches of her family tree in this dazzling, hilarious memoir. Most of us grow up knowing who we are and where we come from. Lisa Alther's mother hailed from New York, her father from Virginia. One day a babysitter told Lisa about the Melungeons: six-fingered child-snatchers who hid in caves. Forgetting about these creepy kidnappers until she had a daughter of her own, Lisa learned they were actually an isolated group of dark-skinned people--often with extra thumbs--living in East Tennessee. But who were they? Descendants of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony? Kin of shipwrecked Portuguese or Turkish sailors? Or were they the children of frontiersman, or displaced Native Americans? Part sidesplitting travelogue, part how (and how not) to climb your family tree, Alther's Kinfolks casts light on a little-known part of America's contentious racial history; it shimmers with wicked humor, dazzles with wit, and demonstrates just how wacky and wonderful our human family truly is.

 

Review: Lisa Alther's memoir explores her family roots, as she goes on a exploration to discover what her grandparents wouldn't tell her and what other family members never knew. Alther discovered that she likely had Melungeon ancestors, and set out to find out exactly who the Melungeons were. Multiple theories about Melungeon origins abound - members of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony, descendants of shipwrecked Portuguese, descendants with mixed race including Native American and African ancestors.

 

I chose this book to read because of an interest in learning more about the Melungeons. Although the book does deal with the Melungeons, it's not solely about this aspect of Alther's family tree. Alther spends the first half of the book relaying childhood anecdotes and describing her family. I particularly enjoyed reading about her experiences facing prejudice as a Southerner in a very Northern college. However, that is not what I anticipated from this memoir going in, and I felt somewhat led astray by the book jacket.

 

It was interesting reading about traits peculiar to Melungeons - dark skin, blue eyes, oftentimes with extra fingers. However, because of the many theories as to Melungeon origins, at times I felt the narrative and historical pondering became too vague and open ended. Alther throws in summations of major historical events including colonization, slavery, Native American populations, and racism in America. At times the thread of the narrative felt a bit overboard in its scope, and also elementary in trying to quickly summarize vast and complicated issues. Yet this is a memoir, and it is Alther's family story, so it's her history to tell.

 

Alther repeatedly references her feeling that she isn't a "fun" person, yet this is ironic to me because her memoir is written in a pithy and witty manner. For example, "What I was growing up, we split a cow with them every year for meat. I remember the year we ate the cow named Lisa. So do my therapists" (54). I suspect that Alther is a funny conversationalist, and one who isn't afraid to poke fun at herself. I also appreciated her candid summation of childhood in a Southern culture, and her bravery in defying her grandmother's wish to not look into her family heritage. Like Alther, I would absolutely want to know where I had come from. I liked that the memoir concluded with Alther and her father finding out their genetic ancestry, because I felt like it finally gave some conclusions about where the Melungeons originated from.  Although we're unlikely to ever know the full story, it appears that they likely represent a true American melting pot, albeit one shrouded in mystery, suspicion, and prejudice for generations.

 

Stars: 3