Acts of Forgiveness: A Novel

"Acts of Forgiveness is a story about family, with all the challenge, ambiguity, interconnection, obligation, and love the term carries. A generous, thoughtful and thought-provoking novel about inheritance in all its forms."—Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden StateIn this big-hearted debut about ambition, race, and class, a family grapples with how much of their lineage they’re willing to unearth in order to participate in the nation’s first federal reparations program. Almost a decade ago, Willie Revel gave up her burgeoning journalism career in New York to help run her father’s struggling construction company in Philadelphia. An ambitious single mother, Willie has reluctantly put family first without being able to forget who she might have become. Now, as the president of the United States prepares to pass the Forgiveness Act, a bill that would allow Black families to claim reparations if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves, Willie delves deeper into her family’s history, while also trying to keep the family from going into bankruptcy. Could reparations help uncover her forgotten roots and right generational wrongs, while also helping save their beloved home and her father’s life work? But for reasons both justifiable and cryptic, the rest of the family is hesitant and wary of what pursuing Forgiveness could mean. Her mother who was adopted is not eager to dig up the past; her father doesn't trust the government; and her daughter is just trying to make it through the fifth grade at her elite private school. It’s up to Willie to verify their ancestry and save her family from financial ruin—but as she delves into their history, Willie begins to learn just how complicated family can really be. With warm insight and powerful prose, Acts of Forgiveness reveals the ways historical discrimination can manifest in the present, asking how history shapes who we are, to consider the weight of success when it is achieved despite incredible odds—and what leaving behind a legacy truly means.