The following reviews are from Amazon Books—vb
- Ann B. Elwood, 9 May 2025, “A fiercely honest, beautifully written memoir”:
Deep Roots, Broken Branches is a tour de force of a memoir-history by a fiercely honest and brilliant historian. It reads like a fine novel. Bynum pulls no punches writing about her childhood in a military family with alcoholic parents, who neglected her and her brothers, and she writes about herself with the same honesty. Some details of her life are laugh-out-loud funny and touching – for example, her teen-aged prayers asking forgiveness for her sexual transgressions, and the tension between her “hot as a pistol” psyche and desire to go to art school. But the book is more than a personal memoir. It delves into the history of her family from several generations back. She brings those ancestors to life with telling details gleaned from her prodigious genealogical research and, as a historian, skillfully sets their lives, as she does her own, into the larger historical context.
2. K. Ciafardoni, 30 March 2025, “A courageous, relatable memoir”:
Deep Roots, Broken Branches is Victoria Bynam’s multigenerational American saga about her family from 1840 to 1979. The renowned historian and author of Free State of Jones, tells the story of five generations navigating life during good times, wartimes, and then times of pain sprinkled with moments of joy. Victoria uses her grandmother’s unpublished memoir to help the reader understand how someone’s life of privilege evolved into a life of struggle and worry. Victoria completes this wonderful book with her own memoir.
One thing that makes Victoria’s writing exceptional is her ability to let the reader hear her internal dialogue as she evaluates documented records. “I was intrigued but skeptical not just about the distance, but also because researchers of family history often exaggerate their ancestors’ associations with famous people.” I found this to be true when researching my own family history.
The more I read, the more I identified with the book. I was surprised when Victoria described her family letter system, The Round Robin. It was developed to help keep family members in touch with each other as they relocated to different parts of the country. My maternal family had a similar letter system that they called the Letter Chain. “One family would compile a letter and photographs and send it to the next family; they in turn would add a letter. . .”
As an adoptee researching my own family, I was struck by how similar some of my families’ narratives were to Victoria’s. Her descriptions of alcohol use, volatile relationships, and fractured family units were so relatable. However, there is one very big difference. Many people’s stories of their ancestors will be lost forever because they aren’t blessed to have a gifted writer and historian like Victoria to bring their family histories to life.
3. Sharon Gibbons Varnado, 15 March 2025, “A bravely told history of family, women, and America”:
I’m a native of Mississippi and became a fan of Victoria Bynum’s historical research and writing after reading her book, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War (Chapel Hill, 2001). Afterward, I read Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chapel Hill, 1992) and The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies (Chapel Hill, 2010). Bynum’s research is deep. Her histories about folks of the Old South and Civil War are inclusive of gender, color, and socioeconomic class. She presents their admirable and abhorrent behavior with equal clarity and without judgment in a way that fosters understanding. Bynum takes this same approach to her own family history and personal memoir. Deep Roots, Broken Branches is an unvarnished story about the tragedies and triumphs of four generations of women, Bynum included, and the challenges they each faced in their place and time. I found Bynum’s personal story particularly moving—a collection of Civil War love letters inspired a bright inquisitive girl who, as a young mother, became an amateur historian/genealogist and then pursued a college education to become the esteemed historian she is today. Deep Roots, Broken Branches is a bravely told history of family, women, and America. Well done.
4. Beverly W., 13 March 2025, “I can’t get this book out of my mind”:
I knew that I would enjoy this book, because I loved Victoria Bynum’s Free State of Jones and Unruly Women. Historical biographies are my favorite genre. This book! Victoria didn’t simply recount her grandmother’s journals from the late 19th century, the great depression and into the 20th century, she used them as guides to understand her mother, father, aunts—and herself. Introspective and courageous. Truth is better than fiction.
5. Sandy Troyer, 11 March 2025, “Deep Roots, Broken Branches”:
This memoir/ history by Victoria Bynum is a wonderful read. When the reader first gets to meet young Vikki, she describes the vast wealth that the fancy dinner seems to represent and then moves forward through the generations. She does not hold back! From great wealth to poverty-stricken alcoholic lifestyles, the twists and turns certainly make this book a real page turner! The author does not hold back on the harsh reality that was her life, so if you are expecting the Brady Bunch or the Waltons, you will be in for a big surprise! The author writes this historically accurate Memoir as a joint effort between her and her maternal grandmother.
