Black Cake

by Charmaine Wilkerson Narrated by Lynnette R. Freeman, Simone Mcintyre

Overview

NOW A HULU STREAMING SERIES ¿ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ¿ Two estranged siblings delve into their mother's hidden past-and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake-in this immersive family saga, “a character-driven, multigenerational story that's meant to be savored” (Time).
 
“Wilkerson transports you across the decades and around the globe accompanied by complex, wonderfully drawn characters.”-Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & The Six, and Malibu Rising

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar, Book Riot, She Reads

We can't choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor's true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother's revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.

Editorial Reviews

APRIL 2022 - AudioFile

A complex family story simmers in this audiobook. Lynnette Freeman and Simone Mcintyre narrate with appropriate energy, wielding rich, precise voices with aplomb. After the recent death of their mother, Benny and Byron are presented with a recording that promises to illuminate family secrets. Once this frame story is established, the narrative breaks into various accounts of the family’s origins, which are emotionally delivered but often challenging to follow in the audio format. The anecdotes are well told—they move briskly, and the narrators are invested in them. But each shift in timeframe or character requires the listener to readjust. While the strengths of Freeman and Mcintyre are evident in both exposition and dialogue, the listener would benefit from the ability to flip back through the pages of a print edition. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

Black Cake is a character-driven, multigenerational story that’s meant to be savored. . . . Thought-provoking and poignant.”—Time

“A thrilling debut novel about sibling ties and hidden family history.”—Glamour

“As delicious as the titular dessert.”—W Magazine

“Wilkerson explores the nuances of racial identity and betrayal in a powerful novel.”—Vogue (UK)

“Black Cake is a satisfying literary meal, heralding the arrival of a new novelist to watch.”—Associated Press

“A stellar first-time entry from a talented new writer that’s full of food, surfing, and rich patois.”—BET

“Crafted with delicate intention and textured with a blend of perspectives.”—Vulture

“I was instantly taken in by this multigenerational tale of identity, family, and the lifelong push and pull of home. This novel has a tremendous heart at its center, and I felt its beat on every page. What an extraordinary debut.”—Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes

“Exquisite and expansive, Black Cake took ahold of me from the first page and didn’t let go. This is a novel about the formation and reformation of a family, and the many people, places, and events that can shape our inheritances without our knowing. A gripping, poignant debut from an important, new voice.”—Naima Coster, New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours

“Black Cake has all the ingredients of the tastiest stories: secrets, romance, danger, and a cast of characters so real you want to scream at them one moment and hug them the next.”—Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

“So beautifully written I’m struggling to believe it’s a debut . . . The cake is the glue that holds all the layers together and the scenes are so well drawn I could almost taste the cake, feel the warm sea on my skin.”—Nikki May, author of Wahala

“With fantasy-like sensual detail, Wilkerson slips through time and place to explore the emotional weight of family traditions passed down through generations to heirs challenged to find their own emotional truths.”—Lucy Sanna, author of The Cherry Harvest

“Fans of family dramas by Ann Patchett, Brit Bennett, and Karen Joy Fowler should take note. Black Cake marks the launch of a writer to watch, one who masterfully plumbs the unexpected depths of the human heart.”—BookPage (starred review)

“Wilkerson uses one Caribbean American family’s extraordinary tale to probe universal issues of identity and how the lives we live and the choices we make leave ‘a trail of potential consequences’ that pass down through generations.”—Booklist (starred review)

Library Journal - Audio

06/01/2022

Estranged siblings Benny and Byron are reluctantly reunited after the death of their mother, Eleanor. She's left them a traditional Caribbean black cake and a long voice recording that unspools a family history kept secret for nearly 50 years. As they listen to the recording, the novel explores not just Eleanor's life and secrets, but also the siblings' childhood, their adult years, and the events that led to their estrangement. Two exceptional performances from narrators Lynnette Freeman and Simone Mcintyre bring Wilkerson's globe-trotting, decade-spanning debut novel vividly to life. Freeman narrates the bulk of the book in a deep, rich tone that works for characters of all ages and genders. Mcintyre voices the recording left by Eleanor in a gentle, musical Caribbean accent. The similarities in their voices create continuity between the novel's sections, while highlighting the recording that is the story's central element. VERDICT Grounded but filled with feeling, the narrators' performances perfectly match the tenor of Wilkerson's emotional novel. Highly recommended.—Emily Calkins

Library Journal

★ 02/01/2022

DEBUT Wilkerson's debut brings together two estranged siblings after the death of their mother, Eleanor. Byron, a successful biologist, has stuck by his family through his father's and now his mother's deaths. After 10 years apart, he sees his sister Benny at the reading of their mother's will. The siblings, who used to be inseparable, are instructed to listen to a recording their mother left, then share the black cake (her old family recipe for special occasions) "when the time is right." The recording reveals a hidden past filled with tragedy and heartache neither child could have imagined. The siblings learn about Covey, who lives in the Caribbean, is abandoned by her mother at an early age, and falls for a boy named Gibbs. When Covey is accused of murder, she leaves home with only a wooden box and her mother's black cake recipe. The story moves to Britain, where Covey experiences more tragedy. Byron and Benny learn the sacrifices, hardships, and sorrow their mother endured, while finding out more about themselves and their identities. VERDICT Already picked up by Oprah's Harpo Films, Wilkerson's novel jumps between Covey's life and Byron's and Benny's in the current day. This engrossing read is highly recommended.—Brooke Bolton

APRIL 2022 - AudioFile

A complex family story simmers in this audiobook. Lynnette Freeman and Simone Mcintyre narrate with appropriate energy, wielding rich, precise voices with aplomb. After the recent death of their mother, Benny and Byron are presented with a recording that promises to illuminate family secrets. Once this frame story is established, the narrative breaks into various accounts of the family’s origins, which are emotionally delivered but often challenging to follow in the audio format. The anecdotes are well told—they move briskly, and the narrators are invested in them. But each shift in timeframe or character requires the listener to readjust. While the strengths of Freeman and Mcintyre are evident in both exposition and dialogue, the listener would benefit from the ability to flip back through the pages of a print edition. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2022-01-26
Siblings called together after their mother's death learn that almost everything they know about their Caribbean-born parents is a lie.

On an unnamed island in 1965, a bride throws herself into the ocean after her much older gangster husband drops dead at their wedding reception and is never again seen in her village. (She is, however, a very good swimmer.) In Southern California in 2018, Byron and his sister, Benny, are called to listen to an audio file their mother spent days making for them. Estranged for years, they resist, asking for a copy to take home, but their mother's lawyer (who also seems to be grieving) says their mother was very specific, telling them, "There are things your mother wanted you to hear right away, things you need to know." Are there ever. The threads connecting the alternating sections of the book, "Then" and "Now," are many, and tangled, and somehow just keep getting more complicated as the pages roll by. The complex plotting of this novel, unfurling over decades and continents, and the careful pacing of its reveals, often in very short, almost epigrammatic chapters, are enticing. But the pacing is overly slowed by endless lingering inside the heads of characters recapping, reviewing, and agonizing over their predicaments. You want to be tapping your toe with suspense, not fraying patience. And while the island-born characters introduced in the "Then" part of the book are deliciously larger than life, with outsized talents, shortcomings, and powers of self-reinvention, the backstories and concerns of the "Now" characters feel consciously assembled to touch bases of gender and racial identity, domestic abuse, political consciousness, climate change, etc. Nonetheless, Wilkerson is clearly an author to watch.

There is plenty to savor in this ambitious and accomplished debut.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176195392
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	02/01/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	266,212

Read an Excerpt

Now

2018

She’s here.

Byron hears the elevator doors peel open. His first instinct is to rush toward his sister and embrace her. But when Benny leans in to hug him, Byron pushes her away, then turns to knock on the door to the attorney’s office. He feels Benny put a hand on his arm. He shakes it free. Benny stands there, her mouth open, but says nothing. And what right does she have to say anything? Byron hasn’t seen Benny in eight years. And, now, their ma is gone for good.

What does Benny expect? She took a family argument and turned it into a cold war. Never mind all that talk about societal rejection and discrimination and whatnot. It seems to Byron that whatever kind of problem you have in this world, you can find someone to show you understanding. And times are changing. There’s even been a study in the news recently about people like Benny.

People like Benny.

The study says it can be a lonely road for people like her. But she won’t be getting any sympathy from Byron, no. Benedetta Bennett gave up that luxury years ago when she turned her back on her family, even though she claims it was the other way around. At least she showed up this time. Six years ago, Byron and his mother sat in the church across from his father’s coffin up in L.A. County, waiting for Benny to arrive, but no Benny. Later, Byron thought he saw his sister skirting the burial grounds in the back of a car. She’d be there any minute, he thought. But, still, no Benny. Only a text from her later, saying I’m sorry. Then silence. For months at a time. Then years.

As each year went by, he was less certain that Benny had been there that day or that he’d ever had a sister to begin with.

That he’d ever had a chubby, squiggle-headed baby girl following him around the house.

That she’d ever cheered him on at the national meets.

That he’d ever heard her voice sailing across the auditorium as he closed his hand around his doctoral diploma.

That he’d ever not felt the way he does right now. Orphaned and pissed as hell.


Benny

Her mother’s attorney opens the door and Benny looks past him, half expecting to see her ma sitting in the room. But it’s only Benny and Byron now, and Byron won’t even look at her.

The lawyer is saying something about a message from their mother but Benny can’t concentrate, she’s still looking at Byron, at the bits of gray in his hair that didn’t use to be there. What’s with the pushing, anyway? The man is forty-five years old, not ten. In all these years, her big brother has never shoved her, never hit her, not even when she was little and tended to pounce and bite like a puppy.

Benny’s first memory of Byron: They are sitting on the couch, she is settled under her brother’s arm, and Byron is reciting adventure stories to her from a book. His feet can already touch the floor. Byron stops to fluff Benny’s hair with his fingers, to pull on her earlobes, to pinch her nostrils shut, to tickle her until she is breathless with laughter, until she is dying of happiness.


The Message

Their mother has left them a message, the lawyer says. The lawyer’s name is Mr. Mitch. He’s talking to Byron and Benny as though he’s known them all their lives, though Byron can only recall meeting him one other time, when his ma needed help getting around town after her accident last winter, the one his friend Cable insisted wasn’t an accident. Byron walked his mother up to Mr. Mitch’s office, then went back outside to wait for her in the car. He was sitting there watching some kids skateboard down the broad, buff-toned sidewalks between one high-end chain store and the next, when a police officer rapped on his side window. 

This kind of thing had happened to Byron so often over the course of his adult life that sometimes he forgot to be nervous. But most times, whenever he was approached or pulled over by an officer, he slid down into that space between one heartbeat and the next where he could hear his blood crashing through his body, a waterfall carrying centuries of history with it, threatening to wipe out the ground on which he stood. His research, his books and social media following, the speaking engagements, the scholarship he wanted to fund, all of it, could be gone in a split second of misunderstanding.

Only later, after the officer had opened the trunk of his patrol car and come back with a copy of Byron’s latest book (Could he have an autograph?), did it occur to Byron that a grown man of any color, sitting alone in a car watching pre-adolescents skateboard up and down the sidewalk, could elicit a reasonable degree of suspicion. All right, he could see that, it wasn’t always about him being a black man. Though, mostly, it was.

“Let me just warn you,” Mr. Mitch is saying now. “About your mother. You need to be prepared.”

Prepared?

Prepared for what? Their mother is already gone.

His ma.

He doesn’t see how anything after that is going to make much of a difference.


B and B

There’s an entire file box labeled Estate of Eleanor Bennett. Mr. Mitch pulls out a brown paper envelope with their mother’s handwriting on it and puts it on the desk in front of Byron. Benny shifts her seat closer to Byron’s and leans in to look. Byron removes his hand but leaves the packet where Benny can see it. Their ma has addressed the envelope to B and B, the moniker she liked to use whenever she wrote or spoke to them together.

B-and-B notes were usually pinned to the fridge door with a magnet. B and B, there’s some rice and peas on the stove. B and B, I hope you left your sandy shoes at the door. B and B, I love my new earrings, thank you!

Ma only called them Byron or Benny when she was speaking with one sibling or the other, and she only called Benny Benedetta when she was upset.

Benedetta, what about this report card? Benedetta, don’t talk to your father that way. Benedetta, I need to talk to you.

Benedetta, please come home.

Their mother left a letter, Mr. Mitch says, but most of their mother’s last message is contained in an audio file that took her more than eight hours, over four days, to record.

“Go ahead,” Mr. Mitch says, nodding at the packet.

Byron cuts open the envelope and shakes out its contents, a USB drive and a handwritten note. He reads the note out loud. It’s so typically Ma.

B and B, there’s a small black cake in the freezer for you. Don’t throw it out.

Black cake. Byron catches himself smiling. Ma and Dad used to share a slice of cake every year to mark their anniversary. It wasn’t the original wedding cake, they said, not anymore. Ma would make a new one every five years or so, one layer only, and put it in the freezer. Still, she insisted that any black cake, steeped as it was in rum and port, could have lasted the full length of their marriage.

I want you to sit down together and share the cake when the time is right. You’ll know when.

Benny covers her mouth with one hand.

Love, Ma.

Benny starts to cry.

Videos