Company

A richly detailed, brilliantly woven debut about the life and lore of one Black American family, told in thirteen distinct snapshots of their family gatherings

The children of the four Collins sisters – Cassandra, Lela, Suzette and Felice – have a complicated inheritance. It includes unbreakable rules for navigating society, contested stories about their grandparents’ early lives, capacious musical talents, and an opal necklace of uncertain origin. In this sparkling debut, Shannon Sanders brings us into the company of this majestically complicated multigenerational family as they meet, bicker, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure.

With deceptive ease, Sanders captures the nuanced performances of the most intimate and most estranged family relationships. From a pair of brothers reuniting to oust a deadbeat boyfriend from their mother’s home to a quartet of nieces roped into attending a party in their aunt’s honour, from unexpected visitors to ghostly presences and unwelcome memories, each gathering in this collection is filled with buoyancy and affection, with solemnity and sadness.

The family stories that comprise Company lead to a deeper, more compelling truth about the rules by which we live – those that we inherit, and those that we make for ourselves.