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- New York Times
A Novel That Offers the Pleasure of Seeing a Perfect Family Crumble
DOMINION, by Addie E. Citchens
Addie E. Citchens's debut novel, set in the Mississippi Delta town of Dominion, offers readers the delectable pleasure of watching an outwardly perfect family crumble under its own arrogance and rot.
The Winfreys live in a wealthy part of town 'with all the rest of the fancy Black folk,' presiding over the venerable Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church and a small-business empire that includes a barbershop, radio station and restaurant. Their story is told in first-person sections that alternate between Priscilla, the first lady of Seven Seals, and Diamond, an unrooted girl who devotes herself to Manny, the brightest star in the constellation of Winfrey sons.
In its exploration of female competition and resourcefulness, 'Dominion' may remind readers of Zora Neale Hurston's work. At her best, Citchens can effortlessly convey history, personality and desire, as when Diamond explains Manny's appeal:
When he passed … the girls sighed. When he picked you, you didn't giggle about him with your girlfriends, or they would get too jealous and try to slander your name. Me and my siblings were smelly poor when we were younger, and on top of that, my mama went and left … which was shameful in itself. Kids like me usually went through school either being very violent or very quiet. I wasn't a fighter, so I had long ago chosen the latter. … I was content to watch him, knowing I would never get the chance to love him.
Given her harrowing childhood, revealed in gut-wrenching flashbacks (roach-infested motels, parental disappearance, a Coke machine clunking down its cans at all hours of the night), Diamond is clearly the character to root for.
The other major characters aren't as absorbing. We're meant to dislike the patriarch, the Rev. Sabre Winfrey, whom Priscilla pegs as an unfaithful, violent tyrant. But I harbored hopes of seeing this apparently industrious, charismatic man in action, of encountering the type of character seen in the work of, say, Flannery O'Connor: a figure you dislike but whose vibrancy and particularity enliven the narrative.
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