The Fallen Fruit

By: Jamie Steinberg

After reading The Fallen Fruit my current state of mind is that gif of Tom Hanks from the movie “Big” where he has his hand raised and he says, “I don’t get it.” Apologies to author Shawntelle Madison, who is clearly well read and knowledgeable on African American history, but the mix of timelines for this fantasy meets history story left me a bit befuddled. Picture “Outlander” if Claire didn’t need stones to travel through time and any time that she did travel she had no control over where she’d land. It’s sort of like that. This tale mixes many stories of The Bridge family as they fall into the past and hope to curb the curse that has created this vicious cycle.

Cecily Bridge-Davis comes from a long line of Bridge family members that have inherited a curse that plagues the paternal line of the family. In every generation an offspring from a male Bridge family unit vanishes – mysteriously reappearing in the past. We meet Cecily in 1964 where she works as a history professor. She has just inherited sixty-five acres of land that her father’s family has owned for generations. While cleaning up and looking around she discovers a satchel that contains Freedom papers, a compass and a list of rules to help one navigate the past and orient you in time. The rules warn not to interfere with past events and not to speak to strangers unless necessary in order to prevent future consequences.

Looking to explore her ancestry thanks to a family Bible that contains notes of those who have come and gone through life, death and disappearance, Cecily hopes to learn more about how the curse began. We meet Sabrina who a free Black woman hoping to make her own way in the world, Luke who travels through battlefields hoping to return to the woman he loves, Rebecca who seeks to change the family’s stars and Amelia who is determined to find a way to end the curse before it begins. It all leaves the reader a bit confused as to who is who and how they all fit into the puzzle that is the Bridge bloodline.

Madison’s tale is page-turning but a little lackluster when it comes to the ending. I was captivated by each character; however, I just wanted a clearer idea of where they all fit into the family’s curse and created a chain reaction that would form and maybe later alter their timelines based on their actions. My heart hurt for those who lost a loved one and cheered for those who made their way through the past to find their footing. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t follow along as to how the family members pieced together from past to present.

The Fallen Fruit tells an intriguing fantasy meets history saga that is a bit disjointed. Yes, there is a family tree at the start of the book that can help as a guide, but I wish there had been more of a thread throughout that made it clearer as to which relative was whose and how the connected in the Bridge web that created this ever-looming curse. As someone who was not born from a Bridge man, all I can say my takeaway from this book is that fate always finds a way and am reminded that the bonds of family can’t be erased by time.