These Ghosts are Family

A Novel

By: Maisy Card

Narrated by: Karl O’Brian Williams

PEN/Hemingway Award For Debut Novel Finalist​
Shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

A “rich, ambitious debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Stanford Solomon’s shocking, thirty-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley.

And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.

These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of a single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the houseboy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.

This “rich and layered story” (Kirkus Reviews) explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is a “beguiling…vividly drawn, and compelling” (BookPage, starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.

Critic reviews

"Karl O'Brian Williams narrates the wildly entertaining saga of a Jamaican family in this gothic historical fiction. In a distinct Jamaican accent, Williams sets off the story of Abel Paisley, who faked his own death and assumed the identity of his friend, Stanford Solomon, who had died in an accident. Then Williams continues the circuitous story, narrating an obscure timeline going back to Jamaica's years of slavery two centuries earlier and going forward to Abel's stolen life in present-day New York City. . . . Williams's performance ramps up the story's suspense."

So hard to listen to

First off this was a recommended book from Audible that’s what made me give it a listen. I wanted to like this book but I couldn’t. It was so disjointed. The one thing I liked about it was getting a glimpse of plantation life in Jamaica. But I never could figure out how all the characters fit together and the ending was odd but blessedly it was the ending. It’s the first audio book I have struggled to finish. The accent it was read in was heavy, which I expected but it made it difficult to understand what was being said at times. Given a do over I would pick another book.

Whew Child! What a tale!

Loved this audio version! Very entertaining and captavating. This novel left the listener wanting more. Some closure is needed.

Couldn’t get through it

I like complicated characters and stories. For this one, I found the idea of the ghosts we carry appealing, especially as they take the form of our regrets. But, I do need at least one character to either like, resonate with, or root for. Half way through, and I didn’t like or connect with a single one. I gave up.

Entertaining... but a few stories in one.

the book was very entertaining. I struggled through some parts... I don't particularly chronological jumps.

absolutely wonderful

Loved every minute of this book! Kudos to the narrator for bringing this breathtaking novel to life.