Divided by history, reunited by passion

Boston Globe

16-04-2025

Soon the reader is transported to Natchez, Miss., where Harrison, just released from the Union Army, searches for Tirzah, hoping to rekindle their relationship. The formerly rich city is in ruin, and the plantation where Tirzah once worked has been abandoned. Jerkins's description of post-war Natchez could easily be mistaken for post-apocalyptic: 'As he and his fellow soldiers rode their horses on a trail alongside the Mississippi approaching the city, they saw that all the levees had been destroyed. With each step closer to their destination, the smell of festering animal carcasses became stronger. Weeds and swampland had swallowed up fields upon fields of cotton.'
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Harrison posts an ad searching for Tirzah through the
Tirzah's steely heroism in the face of white supremacy and violence makes her the book's most memorable character. She not only survives, she rebuilds. Her story spans the deep south to the great plains when she and other family members head to
Jerkins gives her such screen-ready dialogue that it's easy to imagine Tirzah's plotline adapted for film or TV. The historical parts of the book, which run from 1865 to 1912, are riveting, as we watch tightly knit Black communities help each other survive in the face of inevitable displacement at the hands of violent whites. The history is meticulously recreated, down to the way people say the word 'children' ('chirren'), which eventually becomes a key plot point in the contemporary storyline.
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Perhaps inevitably, the stakes of Oliver and Ardelia's romance feel low in contrast to the epic historical sweep of Tirzah and Harrison's everlasting love. Oliver is a doctor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital when the novel coronavirus arrives in America. The stress and trauma of his grim work cause him to disengage from Ardelia's wedding planning. Eventually they take a break from each other, and the break evolves into a breakup. Tirzah's love letter sparks Ardelia's genealogical curiosity, and her search for the truth behind her ancestral origins brings her back to Oliver.
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Occasionally, the romance plot's need to rush forward comes at the expense of character depth. Still,
one can forgive a few glitches in an ambitious book that covers over 150 years and parts of Black American history that aren't widely known. If you believe in fated mates, 'Zeal' is a page-turner that will teach readers a few things about our past.
Leland Cheuk is an award-winning author of three books of fiction, most recently '
.' His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Salon, among other outlets.
ZEAL
By Morgan Jerkins
Harper, 416 pages, $28.99