Happy Land, Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Review by Tricia Nelson)

Did you know that there was once in the hills of Western North Carolina land owned by a group of formerly enslaved men and women? In 1873 they fled South Carolina after the end of slavery (and rise of the KKK) to find a place to call home. They harkened back to their roots in Africa and the kingdoms that they came from to form a new Kingdom that they called Happy Land, complete with a king and queen. They worked together to form this kingdom based on mutual aid, caring for each other and the collective, giving everyone a voice, and creating a home that was theirs alone. The story of this land is told in a well-constructed dual timeline format, with Luella Montgomery (the first queen of Happy Land) telling the story of the creation of Happy Land, and her present day great-great-great granddaughter Nikki, telling the modern day impact of the kingdom. You come to know and understand both of these women and the complications of their relationships with the men in their lives and their families. You will feel for Luella and the rest of the Kingdom residents as the post-slavery South finds ways to try to take advantage of, keep down, and punish freedpeople. You will wonder at the strength of her character amid the challenges faced. Nikki is a modern day woman trying to make her way. She didn’t grow up being told the history of Happy Land, or why her mother and grandmother no longer speak, but circumstances lead her to visit her grandmother on what remains of Happy Land in North Carolina. I was struck by the pull of family connections to both the people and the land that are intertwined in the history of these women. In the United States, so often people move away from ‘home’ for school and career, and don’t have that connection to a piece of land that has seen generations of their family. Do we lose something in our heritage in this way? I think so, and I think the author does also. This was a great read, well-paced, and would make for a wonderful book club discussion. I highly recommend it!