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Memphis : a novel / Tara M. Stringfellow.

by Stringfellow, Tara M.

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The Dial Press, 2022.

Families, Black -- Fiction.

Racism against Black people -- Fiction.

Racism -- Fiction.

Families -- Fiction.

Drawing -- Fiction.

9780593230480 (hc)

xii, 252 p. ; 24 cm.

"A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter's discovery that she has the power to change her family's legacy. In the summer of 1995, ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father's violence to the only place they have left: her mother's ancestral home in Memphis. Half a century ago, Joan's grandfather built this majestic house for her grandmother -- only to be lynched, days after becoming the first Black detective in Memphis, by his all-white police squad. This wasn't the first time violence altered the course of Joan's family's trajectory, and given who lives inside this house now, she knows it won't be the last. When her aunt opens the door, Joan sees the cousin who once brutally assaulted her. Over the next few years, she is determined not just to survive, but to find something to dream for. Longing to become an artist, she pours her rage and grief into sketching portraits of the women in her life -- including old Miss Dawn from down the street, who seems to know something about curses. Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of voices, Memphis weaves back and forth in time to show how the past and future are forever intertwined. It is only when Joan comes to see herself as a continuation of a long matrilineal tradition--and the women in her family as her guides to healing -- that she understands that her life does not have to be defined by vengeance. That the sole weapon she needs is her paintbrush. Inspired by the author's own family history, Memphis -- the Black fairy tale she always wanted to read -- explores the complexity of what we pass down, not only in our families, but in our country: police brutality and justice, powerlessness and freedom, fate and forgiveness, doubt and faith, sacrifice and love. "--Publisher.

Domestic fiction.

Social commentary fiction.

Women's fiction.

Literary fiction.

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