Review: Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden by Camille T. Dungy

Photo by Neslihan Gunaydin on Unsplash

Poet and Scholar, Camille T. Dungy takes us on a journey alongside her family in her quest to create a garden in a predominately white neighborhood in Fort Collins, Colorado. Dungy relates her own personal history to the wider experience of navigating race in America and the importance of the connection between Black people and the land.

Her stories deeply weave history, resilience and resistance into a fabric of gardening. Her very garden, in a sense, resistance in a community that wanted to regulate what residents could and could not grow. Reminiscent of the idea of HOA workers that walk around with rulers to measure the grass height. But we see Dungy’s persistence. There is determination to create a thriving garden, even through hardened soil which can be likened to the struggle of Black people for centuries.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a book about soil, but I have to say that Dungy’s writing is both informative and enticing. She keeps you reading with personal moments like injecting the commentary of her husband Ray which feels like the right annotations at the right time while also giving deep lessons in history when discussing figures like Anne Spencer recounting her time in Lynchburg, Virginia.

It’s a book best taken in doses. Taking time to actually reflect on the poignant case Dungy makes about the connection of the whole of the African Diaspora and the land. Somewhere along the way, it has been portrayed that environmental justice is not a fight of Black people but the author reminds us it is and always has been.

Expansive in the stories that it brings to the surface, Soil itself is robust in the harvest it yields. Rich in stories of triumph but not shying away from the reality of erasure, segregation, legacy, and responsibility. Dungy serves us a nourishing meal in her storytelling.

Making dense subject matter into an engaging read is no easy work. I know this as a writer myself. But Soil gives us both great prose and a bevy of important history.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing a free arc for review. Soil releases on May 2nd and can be pre-ordered through our Bookshop.org storefront where we receive a small commission to support our work of amplifying and cultivating the voices of Black writers and writers of color.