When Ebony "Ebby" Freeman was ten years old, she was the sole witness of a botched home invasion robbery that resulted in the shooting death of her fifteen-year-old brother, Baz, and the destruction of a priceless family heirloom.

The fact that Ebby is the daughter of a prominent Black family living in an exclusive development in New England only added to the sensational nature of the crime and thrust Ebby into a traditional and social media firestorm she never wanted and has worked tirelessly to avoid. Until she can’t. When her engagement to the only child of another high-profile New England family disintegrates in a spectacularly public way, Ebby once again finds herself where she’s never wanted to be: at the center of the world’s attention.

Craving peace and privacy, Ebby flees to a small village in France, where one of her friends, Hannah, manages a rental property, which Ebby will have to herself because Hannah is traveling. It sounds like exactly what Ebby needs: peace, quiet, & solitude. But what did Robert Burns tell us in "To a Mouse," "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry... " Life, it seems, has other plans for Ebby. And, oddly enough, those plans may ultimately give Ebby the peace for which she has been desperately seeking.

In her sophomore novel, Charmaine Wilkerson, the author of 2022's marvelous Black Cake, takes readers on a journey of tragedy, resilience, and, ultimately, rising like a phoenix to claim the life you want, need, and deserve.

Wilkerson focuses on the Freemans, a successful African American family who have lived in New England since shortly after the United States became a country. Wilkerson highlights the hypocrisies of the American inclination to celebrate the histories and accomplishments of white families whose lineage can be traced back to the earliest European settlers who crossed the Atlantic while ignoring other families’ lineages because they include uncomfortable truths that must, ultimately, be recognized.

Wilkerson traces the Freeman family back to the first member forcefully taken against her will from her home in 1803. Wilkerson follows the family tree as it branches, develops, survives, and, ultimately, thrives. She also chronicles the creation of the 20-gallon clay storage jar that transcends its original purpose and becomes a family heirloom, passed along from generation to generation, symbolizing not only where the Freemans came from, but their future as well.

Wilkerson follows the Freeman family as they navigate their grief over the loss of Baz and the fact that after 19 years, the case has never been solved. Indeed, no reason for the home invasion has ever been identified. The Freemans all struggle with guilt, regret, and fear that what happened once could happen again. She also illustrates how people manage and respond to that type of trauma, which is often intensified by the invasive attention paid to high profile crime that never really goes away.

While a lot of Good Dirt deals with tragedy and injustice, Wilkerson balances the dark with some light. The novel is also filled with the absurdities of life that truly can’t be anticipated or explained when they happen. It is also filled with the joy that comes from the familiarity of family and friends and the satisfaction of finally finding your place in a difficult world.

As one of her characters states in the novel, and Wilkerson references in her Author’s Note, "History can only be told through a chorus of voices." Wilkerson is telling stories that reference histories previously untold but that we all need to hear.

• Read an interview with the author here.