From the moment when, as a little girl, she realizes that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents, her Highland mother and Nigerian father, the journey that Jackie Kay undertakes in Red Dust Road is full of unexpected twists, turns and deep emotions. In a book shining with warmth, humour and compassion, she discovers that inheritance is about much more than genes: that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells, and that our internal landscapes are as important as those through which we move. Taking the reader from Glasgow to Lagos and beyond, Red Dust Road is revelatory, redemptive and courageous, unique in its voice and universal in its reach. It is a heart-stopping story of parents and siblings, friends and strangers, belonging and beliefs, biology and destiny, and love.
(plot synopsis taken from Goodreads)
My introduction to Jackie Kay came from my undergraduate degree, in which we were tasked to read her debut novel Trumpet. In all honesty, I can’t remember a single thing about it. But after reading Red Dust Road, I’m certain that I will go back and revisit it with fresh eyes and a more inquisitive heart. Maybe to make more of an impact I needed to know the context in which the novel was written and why the subject matter is of interest to the author.
Red Dust Road was a wonderful reading journey. It’s a narrative wrapped up in memory, nostalgia, landscape, family, identity and lack of, grief, excitement, love, lust, discourses of race and age. Everything that a human being is and experiences, this novel is made up of. In a way, it breathes with life. When reading this you become so distinctly aware that there are so many different paths that your life could have taken, dependent on tiny details of your life. We all know that, really, but reading such startling evidence of the fact almost makes you go down the rabbit hole of ‘what-ifs’. I can see this autobiography being a really powerful read to adopted children similar to Jackie, who feel torn between lives and struggle with the question of whether to face the quest of truth or allow contentment and fulfilment from their lives at present. But even as an outsider, a product of a stable biological family, reading about something that I’ve never had to think about, yet is so integral to other people’s lives, gives some great insight. However, it’s not entirely read from a place of privilege. What’s great about Red Dust Road is that it portrays the search for biological family as an added extension to the already full life that she lives. It is true that Jackie feels she must find her biological family, but it’s not from a place of dissatisfaction from her life as an adopted child. She is who she is regardless.
The memoir is one of warmth and gratitude. Jackie’s appreciation and respect for her adoptive parents is what really shines through, and makes it a really heart-warming and moving read. She details accounts of everyday life alongside her monumental excursions, and personally those were some of my favourite parts to read. Reading nostalgic conversations of ‘remember when?’ between Jackie and her parents while they’re sat at home drinking wine made the autobiography feel grounded in something real, balanced and a sense of normality.
The autobiography has a beautiful, euphoric ending that leaves you satisfied and wrecked with emotion. But what I love about it is that Jackie’s story is no way near completion yet. She has many more physical and mental journeys to discover, as we all do, and I am excited to see it all unfold.
★★★★ RED DUST ROAD ★★★★
The Power of the Printed Word 
Really incredible how she brings intricate ideas of how she has been shaped as a person by this story & autobiography in one, lovely review!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a great memoir!!
LikeLike