This compelling novel about a small town black family living not far from Chicago is distinguished by the river of lucid and poetic language in which it is told. Through a powerful flow of vernacular speech and the varied rhythms of memory, a story emerges that is as moving as it is true, as individual as it is American." "Opening in the midwest region of 1950's America, the story draws us into the intricate relations among the troubled members of a singular, haunted, African-American family. Sex, love, betrayal, violence - all these collide to result in a tragedy as well as the coming of age of the young woman, Hassalia, who is the novel's protagonist. Now, more than 25 years later, in a reckoning with the past, and an awful replaying of it, Hassalia may be facing her own death." "She pulls the reader along as she pieces together how and why her world began to spin out of control with the death of her grandmother, the much feared, warily respected family matriarch: Ma Rhetta. For it is this shattering event that resurrects long-buried anguish and, in the process, triggers Hassalia's delayed transformation from tree-climbing tomboy to womanhood."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved