First published 2015
Cha-Cha Turner stands in the house on Yarrow Street where he grew up with his twelve siblings. The family home has weathered five decades on Detroit's East Side, watching neighborhoods crumble and the city transform around it. Now their mother Viola lies sick, and the thirteen Turner children must return to face a decision that will tear them apart. Some want to sell the house that anchors their family history. Others refuse to let it go. Each sibling carries different memories of this place where they learned to survive, to fight, and to love. As they argue over the house's future, old resentments surface and family secrets emerge. The Turners discover that deciding the fate of four walls and a roof means confronting everything that made them who they are. Their father is gone, their mother is failing, and Detroit itself has changed beyond recognition. But inside this house, the past still lives in every room, demanding they choose between holding on and letting go.
Genres: american-fiction, african-american, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, found-family
Setting: Detroit, East Side
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
341 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt