Review of "Shadows of Custody" by Thomas Gates

Score: 93+/100 (9.3+ out of 10)

A custody battle, a courtroom drama, and a racial firestorm all wrapped into one!

Shadows of Custody by Thomas Gates is a tense, socially conscious novel that centers on the custody of a child (and a whole lot more)!

The story follows a Black foster family in Crenshaw Heights fighting to keep the white baby they love when the child’s birth mother returns with lawyers, cameras, and some very dangerous people in her corner.

At the heart of this story are two women who both love the same child in very different ways. Emily is a young, addicted mother who uses the Safe Surrender law after an emergency birth, convinced her baby will be better off without her. Despite having a tragic and sympathetic background, Emily comes across as one of the main antagonists or outright villains of the novel. It's actually very difficult to root for her or get on her side when it seems clear she plans to use her baby and views her like a bargaining chip or trophy to be won.

On the other side are Delores and Marlon Williams, a hardworking, churchgoing Black family who bring “Baby Gracie” into a home that smells like collard greens, peach cobbler, and motor oil, a home held together by Sunday dinners, music, and stubborn faith rather than money or status. Watching these two worlds slowly, inevitably move toward each other is one of the book’s great strengths.

What really elevates the book for us is how it refuses to make this just a paperwork dispute. The custody fight becomes a lightning rod for every bias and power imbalance around it. Officer Chambers and the Brotherhood—powerful villainous forces in this book—exploit Emily’s pain and addiction, feeding her a script about “taking back what’s yours” and “protecting children” while what they really want is a symbol, a white child they can claim was “rescued” from a Black neighborhood. The scenes in court and in the media are infuriating in the right way, showing how easily a loving home can be painted as a “danger zone” when race and class are involved.

The Williams family themselves feel vivid and real. We loved the domestic moments with Delores guarding her kitchen, JJ noodling on his guitar, and Tasha juggling hospital shifts and dreams of her own place. Those quiet scenes make the later violence and legal threats land harder because we have seen exactly what is at stake. Gracie is not just a “minor child” on a form, she is the baby everyone in that little blue house has already wrapped their lives around.

You can really feel like love and care (for Gracie) radiating from the page.
To be perfectly honest, it's pretty lopsided. Like, there's no part of us that feels like Emily should get custody. You can tell how fragile her arguments and mental state are. Forgive the pun, but this is a pretty black and white story in the melodramatic sense: a good side and a bad side.

There are so many antagonists and villains in this book, and all of them just make the Williams family (who is already in the right) even more likable. There's Emily, Chambers, the Brotherhood (which is essentially a domestic terrorist organization), and even the snot nosed lawyer to some extent. These people are crooked and ruthless, using fear, threats, and outright violence to get what they want. These are some bad people!

At the same time, it's a bit over-the-top. Extremists involved in a custody battle to prove their racial superiority is a bit... excessive for this kind of text, but we get it.

This book is incredibly racially charged (in a tactful way). The media constantly eats up and promotes the story of a "white baby missing in a Black neighborhood." And this is escalated to "white baby missing in a violent Black neighborhood" once the villains are able to manipulate the situation and make the Williams neighborhood seem like it's surrounded by gangs, shootings, and drugs. These people are sick.

And perhaps that's a good thing, because it really gets under your skin and helps you get behind the Williams family.

One of the things that's really special about this book is the writing. The writing is exceptional, although it does get a bit cloying at times. The author uses a lot of eloquent descriptions and similes. Here are some of our favorite passages:

"...eyes soft behind the lines time had carved there."

"His voice dropped to a whisper that wrapped around the four of them
like a prayer."

"Sometimes the dead spoke louder than the living."

"...he drawled, glancing at Delores like she was something stuck to his shoe."

"...small as a secret, precious as breath."

There are probably dozens of similes and idioms in this book, which can come across as a bit overdone, but it's nice in the beginning and does serve to elevate the quality of the writing overall.

Something that gets overplayed a lot are the audience's reactions. They are constantly gasping and reacting like they're a live studio audience for a sitcom, which can be a bit funny (probably unintentionally so). We think this was supposed to make the courtroom drama seem more dramatic, compelling, and engaging.

All in all, this is a solid novel.

Check it out on Amazon!