Untethered

Untethered 

By Angela Jackson-Brown 

Harper Muse, 2024 

Paper: $18.99 

Genre: Historical Fiction 

Reviewed by Charlotte C. Teague 

The word tether is defined as “to tie or restrict.” As is Katia Daniels, who is tied to behaviors and expectations of herself and others that are restricting her from living her best life. Tackling themes connected to womanhood and the complexities of personal and family tensions, Alabama author Angela Jackson-Brown gives readers a protagonist in her newest novel, Untethered, struggling to break free from the weight of a life lived for everyone else except herself.  At first, readers can’t tell if Katia’s restricted life has been created by choice or whether it has happened to her by chance.  

Katia Daniels is a 40-year-old single Black woman who leads a group home for Negro boys in Troy, Alabama, in the late 1960s. The story is set against a backdrop of the Vietnam War and southern life. Katia shoulders the burden of caring for the boys at the Pike County group home, boys who have been neglected and often abused. Many of the boys’ lives are very complicated and heartbreaking.  

After her father dies of cancer, Katia becomes the companion and caretaker of her mother, and she is still the responsible older sister to her twin brothers, Marcus and Aaron, who are soldiers in the Vietnam War. Readers learn early in the novel when two identical telegrams arrive that the brothers are missing in action, and Katia must become a “savior” for her family without having the opportunity to process her own emotions properly. Instead, like always, she must be the strong one and take action to find her brothers while also dealing with all the problems of the group home.  

Katia faces a board of directors who do not support her, though she goes above and beyond the job description to ensure that the boys are cared for and well-adjusted. Two boys, in particular, Chad, who has been abused, and Pee Wee, who is unwanted and neglected, need special attention, and she seeks to nurture them while maintaining professional boundaries; however, she does become attached to them against her better judgment, and this attachment adds to the already heavy burdens of her life. She takes them home with her for Thanksgiving hoping to give them some happiness and family stability for the holiday. Unfortunately, unfavorable circumstances disrupt Katia’s good intentions. Jackson-Brown creates a high point in the work around this holiday in beautiful southern form by focusing on food and Black family traditions of hospitality in the south. From the peeling of the sweet potatoes to the washing of the collard greens and then to the cleaning of the ‘chitlins,’ the stage is set at the huge family gathering for the ensuing drama.  

Meanwhile, her personal life is in limbo. There is Brother Leon, an older settled man from the church who shows interest in her, and then there is Seth, her high school crush who returns home as a veteran and possible suitor; however, Katia’s self-confidence, pride, and sense of obligation keep her settling for a life that is robbing her of joy. Only romance novels and the music of the iconic Nina Simone can bring her solace as she tries to cope with her responsibilities, loneliness, grief, stress, and inability to have children.  

Subsequently, because Katia is so accustomed to caring for others, she grapples with opening herself up to other opportunities that can positively change her life. Sometimes, however, circumstances happen to push people out of their comfort zones and into their destinies.   

In the end, after disappointment and tragedy, Katia is forced by circumstances beyond her control to be open for change. Kipling’s famous poem, “IF,” characterizes her plight, “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same… Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools…” It is certain, “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, and—which is more—you’ll be a man…,” or, in Katia’s case, a woman who finds happiness and contentment. 

Charlotte C. Teague is associate professor of English at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU) where she specializes in Professional Writing (Creative, Media, & Technical), Black Women Writers, and Protest Literature.