First published 1994
In the tobacco fields and small towns of North Carolina, lives intersect across racial and generational divides. Kenan weaves together tales of African American and white characters navigating the complexities of Southern life. An elderly woman confronts family secrets that have shaped decades of silence. A young man returns from the city to find his rural hometown transformed yet unchanged. Children discover that the adult world harbors mysteries both wonderful and terrifying. These interconnected stories move between stark realism and moments where the supernatural bleeds into everyday experience. Characters struggle with heritage and progress, tradition and change, as they seek connection across the barriers that history and circumstance have erected. The collection captures the texture of a region where past and present collide, where folklore and fact blur together, and where people of all backgrounds must reckon with the weight of memory and the possibility of redemption.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, african-american, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: interconnected-stories, past-and-present
Setting: North Carolina, Southern
Period: 20th-century
352 pages · Paperback · Abacus