THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF DUPREE

A NOVEL BY KIMBILIO FELLOW NIKESHA ELISE WILLIAMS

From the two-time Emmy Award–winning producer and host of the Black and Published podcast comes a sweeping multi-generational epic following seven generations of Dupree women as they navigate love, loss, and the unyielding ties of family in the tradition of Homegoing and The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois.

It’s 1995, and fourteen-year-old Tati is determined to uncover the identity of her father. But her mother, Nadia, keeps her secrets close, while her grandmother Gladys remains silent about the family’s past, including why she left Land’s End, Alabama, in 1953. As Tati digs deeper, she uncovers a legacy of family secrets, where every generation of Dupree women has posed more questions than answers.

From Jubi in 1917, whose attempt to pass for white ends when she gives birth to Ruby; to Ruby’s fiery lust for Sampson in 1934 that leads to a baby of her own; to the night in 1980 that changed Nadia’s future forever, the Dupree women carry the weight of their heritage. Bound by a mysterious malediction that means they will only give birth to daughters, the Dupree women confront a legacy of pain, resilience, and survival that began with an enslaved ancestor who risked everything for freedom.

The Seven Daughters of Dupree masterfully weaves together themes of generational trauma, Black women’s resilience, and unbreakable familial bonds. Echoing the literary power of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis, Nikesha Elise Williams delivers a feminist literary fiction that explores the ripple effects of actions, secrets, and love through seven generations of Black women.

NIKEHSA ELISE WILLIAMS

KIMBILIO FELLOW AND AUTHOR

Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy award winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black and Published podcast. A narrative strategist by day and journalist always, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Essence, and Vox. Nikesha’s work has been supported by the Kimbilio Fiction Fellowship, the DeGroot Foundation, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. A Chicago native, she lives in Florida with her family

NIKESHA’S WEBSITE

Five Questions for NIKESHA ELISE WILLIAMS

There were several inspirations for The Seven Daughters of Dupree.. Initially, the novel started out as a way for me to explore my own contentious relationship with my father. However, I know my father and my main character, Tati does not. That distinction allowed an immediate break between myself and the character that allowed me a freedom to play on the page. Tati’s angst and emotionality includes some of my own, and the way she processes her feelings through poetry in her journal is also one of my own traits but other than that we’re different people. 

One major inspiration that cracked the story open for me and took me from a simple story about a girl who didn’t know her father to this generational epic is something the author Deesha Philyaw said about writing the best first line possible. I asked myself, “What would my best line be,” and the first line of the novel crash landed in my head like a ton of bricks. The line being, “They cut off her head because she ran,” told me I would be dealing with slavery–I was fascinated by the story of the Clotilda–but the subject of slavery also forced me to ask and answer how would this enslaved ancestor feel about her descendants? 

From there I filled in the rest of the family tree and created each daughter’s issue based on what I wanted to explore including colorism (inspired by my daughter who was born several shades lighter than me), the Great Migration (inspired by my parents who left New Orleans for Chicago in 1970), and the Black Maternal Health Crisis (inspired by my work and writing on the subject as a journalist and freelance reporter). 

The first thing that came to me was the idea “I want to write a book about a girl who doesn’t know her father,” and the title, I  had a different working title when I first started the novel, but it informed the vocation of hairdressing and the importance of hair for Black women and in the Black community. After the idea and the title came the characters. Tati and Nadia showed up first and then Gladys came in mean and surly, but trying her best, and I didn’t know why. When I got to the enslaved storyline I asked the characters their names, and found Rubi, Jubi, and Emma and I kept asking them questions and listening to them until I had written their stories.

I never questioned whether I could be a writer and I attribute that in large part to the author Connie Porter who wrote the original Addy series for American Girl. When the first three books were published, I was eight years old, and my parents took me to the book reading and signing at the DuSable Museum in Chicago. I met Ms. Porter and she signed all three of my books and in one of them she inscribed “keep writing.” Seeing her at such a young age showed me that I could become a writer. I just had to figure our how.

Around the same time, in the third grade, my teacher liked an essay or story I had written, and sent it down to the principal of my school. She then displayed it outside of the office as a highlight of what students were doing and it clicked to me then that, “Okay, I’m good at this.”

The last element came when I was in college. I was working on my undergraduate creative writing thesis and I would sit in my room at my tiny corner desk for hours just typing and be so content. It was then that I envisioned myself writing for the rest of my life. In my house, with a cup of tea, at my desk click-clacking away. My reality is much more chaotic than that but it’s real.

I was most excited to share the news about the novel with two of my undergrad English professors. I sent a copy of the galley to Dr. Maxine Montgomery and Virgilio Suarez at FSU just before Thanksgiving. They both served on my thesis committee and they were the first to read a long form work of mine and validate me as a writer. I’ve kept in touch with them over the years and it just felt great to send them a copy of the novel after being so starstruck by them when I was just a “baby.”

Two books that I’ll shelf next to mine would be Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton. I read that book and said to myself, “I retire from writing.” Tracey’s book made me want to make The Seven Daughters of Dupree  as best as I could just to meet the level of research, craft, and storytelling that she did. That book is phenomenal and I’ll never stop singing its praises. 

I will also shelf Seven Daughters beside my first self-published indie novel Four Women from 2017. I wanted Four Women to do all the things and to get all the things that The Seven Daughters of Dupree  did, but my journey was different. I self-published five novels and one poetry collection and wrote a non-fiction book (Mardi Gras Indians) for a university press. Sitting The Seven Daughters of Dupree  beside my own backlist, especially Four Women, is a sweet reminder that I’ve finally realized what I’ve always wanted and the journey, while long and hard, has turned out especially sweet.