First published 2017
Evelyn grows up Creole in wartime New Orleans, navigating the dangers of Jim Crow segregation. Decades later, her daughter Jackie raises her son alone in 1982, wrestling with her husband's addiction to drugs. Jackie's boy T.C. finds unexpected joy in cultivating marijuana, drawn more to the plants than the product. He lived quietly before Hurricane Katrina swept through the city, destroying the only New Orleans he had ever known. Each generation confronts the poison of racism in different forms. Evelyn battles the open hostility of segregation. Jackie struggles against systems that trap her family in cycles of addiction and poverty. T.C. must rebuild his identity after the storm washes away his familiar world. The family's story spans from World War II through the aftermath of Katrina, showing how racial injustice adapts and persists across time. Their lives interweave across the decades, revealing how the wounds of one generation shape the choices of the next. This debut novel traces the costs of survival and the stubborn power of family bonds in a city that both nurtures and betrays its people.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama, african-american-historical-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: generational-trauma, resilience
Setting: New Orleans
Period: World War II, 1982, Hurricane Katrina
256 pages · Kindle Edition · Counterpoint
Content warnings: addiction, racism