A wonderfully satisfying debut novel ... Sanders doles out relevant information in a careful and controlled manner. There are four Lamb family ghosts ... What could seem an overly whimsical device works here, in part because these are such rich characters on their own, not idealized spirits but complicated people who lived ... Sanders keeps all the narrative plates spinning, story lines slowly converging on an ending that feels surprising yet inevitable, as all good endings do.
The dead in this novel are not all-knowing, nor are they unnamed ... It’s refreshing. The story told here is not ethereal or pedestaled. It’s grounded, planted firmly atop the soil, which allows Sanders’s questions to meet the reader with even more urgency ... Sanders’s debut novel sings, joining a choir of voices alongside Toni Morrison and August Wilson in conjuring memory with contemporary urgency ... Sanders urges her readers to return home, not because it is comfortable, but because there is something to be found in the clutter—something buried away in a box condemned to the attic or hidden among the pages of a photo album: something that might save us.
A debut novel that is part family saga, part historical fiction, part ghost story, and entirely captivating ... Sanders expertly portrays familial relationships, imbuing her characters with pathos and humor as they grapple with the complexities of family legacy.
Sanders (Company) delivers a gripping multigenerational epic of land, home, and inheritance ... Sanders poses timely questions of ownership and ancestry, and she packs the novel with indelible imagery, as when Thomas paces the land before buying it, passing through a 'wall of oaks' to a pond, where he finds the ghost of his great-grandmother. This resonates.
Sanders plots the story so intricately and powerfully that it’s hard to believe this is a first novel ... It has a sprawling cast of characters, and the author has obviously put real care into crafting each one. She imbues the book with imagination and wit, and the narrator’s voice, cheeky and charming, is perfectly rendered. This is a truly magnificent novel from a uniquely powerful voice ... A bighearted triumph.
