I set the book during Reconstruction because, as a lot of people have pointed out, that era mirrors our own. She’s at the bottom of all the power structures - by race, gender, age and color. Libertie is a dark-skinned Black girl in Civil War and Reconstruction society. We measure freedom with what we can get away with doing to people who have less power, whether that means I have the freedom to dictate my child’s life or to take over lands that belong to Indigenous people, or I have the freedom to carry a gun as I please. It allowed me to play with the idea: What does freedom actually look like? In the United States our understanding of freedom is often intricately tied with domination. It’s a little heavy-handed, but I did love using the name Libertie. Like Harry and Meghan, “Libertie’s” 19th century protagonist refuses to follow anyone else’s script. Those questions were happening at the same time as the questions about his future security. Those questions happen all the time, for anyone who has had a biracial child. You should be able to deal with it.” What gets lost in there is the question of Archie’s skin color. You have a billion-dollar press corps dedicated to telling you: “Your dysfunctional extended family is fine. Greenidge spoke with The Times via video from her screened back porch in New England, about colorism, Meghan and Harry, and the Song of Solomon, “the ‘ WAP’ of the Bible.” Greenidge’s immersive story asks many questions, answers few and heralds a blossoming literary career. Unfortunately, when she and her new husband arrive at his family home in Haiti’s Jacmel, she discovers that even a society without white slaveholders has layers of caste and privilege, none of which are to her advantage.

Cathy would have Libertie follow her path in medicine, while Libertie feels drawn to music.įrom her early life in Brooklyn to her brief schooling in Ohio and on to married life in Haiti, Libertie seeks a way of life that will allow her to use her intellect and celebrate her femininity.

Catherine Sampson has skin as light as her daughter Libertie’s is dark the pair have plenty of other differences too. Her second novel is loosely based on the life of Susan Smith McKinney Steward, the first Black woman doctor in the state of New York. In “ Libertie,” Greenidge takes a more international approach. Kaitlyn Greenidge’s explosive 2016 debut novel, “ We Love You, Charlie Freeman,” approached American racism through the perspective of a Black family hired by a scientific institute to teach American Sign Language to a chimpanzee. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge