wolfbiirusan pick up my first two novels on Amazon. just search on 'wyatt bryson' - June 09, 2010 add/view comments (1)

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Charles Ofay and Yolanda Byrd have a one night stand. Several months later Charles gets a call from the hospital informing him that he has a child and the mother has passed away. Charles arrives at the hospital with the false realization that he is there to help out a fraternity brother in trouble. He initially runs but after much thought decides to step up and raise his bi-racial daughter.

Things are initially very tough for Charlie and his daughter Sankofa. Charlie is evicted from his fraternity's house and is forced to live out of his car while he searches for a new place for the two of them to live. The color of his daughter's skin starts presenting itself as an obstacle in this search. And so his education begins. He had likely seen this type of racism before but had no reason to pay attention to it before. Now it is personal and his personal journey and self exploration begins.

Charlie settles into what is basically a boarding house with several new roommates. Downstairs is a pre-law student trying to finish up his undergraduate and a much older man with unclear origins that seems to have come with the house. Upstairs in a suite with him is the woman he originally thought to be the landlord and in the suite across from theirs two forty-somethings that were very close but on opposite ideological sides when it came to Malcolm versus Martin.

With the help of all of these new roommates and Yolanda's sorority sisters, he begins to grow as an individual and understand the rich history that he has become an unexpected part of. He had thought that neither he nor Sankofa had any family but each other, but over time he begins to realize how wrong that assertion is. The generations that have come together in this house begin to educate him on this diverse history.

The unexpected points in the histories of the housemates and the consequences thereof are balanced by how entwined they also become with the chief protagonists of the story. It isn't long before the realization takes place that the police chief and mayor have been abusing their powers and positions for decades to keep the black residents of Stone Haven, South Carolina down.

Through a story that spans decades, we meander back and forth through time much as the sankofa bird of African folklore did it its message of 'go back and retrieve it' - meaning you can't understand the future if you don't pay attention to the past. Through the education of Charlie and the journey he is undertaking with his aptly named daughter Sankofa, we begin to unveil a story that explores and examines human nature and issues of race and racism.