First published 2012
Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe own Brokeland Records, a used vinyl shop sitting between Berkeley and Oakland. The summer of 2004 winds down as the longtime friends and business partners face their biggest threat yet. Gibson Goode, a former NFL quarterback and one of America's wealthiest black men, plans to build a Dogpile megastore on Telegraph Avenue. The news spells disaster for their small record kingdom. Their wives face parallel struggles. Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe work as the Berkeley Birth Partners, celebrated midwives who have delivered over a thousand babies in their community. Now they battle for their own professional survival, straining their friendship. Family complications multiply when Titus Joyner arrives unexpectedly. The teenager is Archy's unacknowledged son and the romantic obsession of fifteen-year-old Julius Jaffe. These overlapping crises force both couples to confront what they value most about their intertwined lives in this corner of Northern California.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, friends-to-lovers
Setting: Berkeley, Oakland, Telegraph Avenue
Period: 2004
465 pages · Hardcover · HarperCollins