Starred review from February 13, 2023
Lee (The Serpent’s Gift) returns after more than 20 years with the powerful story of a woman’s reentry to society after being released from prison. Ranita Atwater, 36, was convicted of a drug charge four years earlier. She grew up as the only child of middle-class Black parents in Boston, where her strict mother died when Ranita was 13. (Her beloved father died while she was in prison.) As a free woman, she longs to see her three children, who are cared for by her protective aunt Val; and to someday reunite with Maxine, the sweet and politically engaged fellow inmate she fell in love with at the prison. With the help of her aunt Jessie, Ranita makes unsteady progress toward building a new life: she gets a dishwashing job, moves into her own apartment, and is eventually allowed to visit her kids. Through therapy, she begins to come to terms with her past, including her addiction to drugs and alcohol and her relationship with the children’s father, who died six years earlier. With a light, poetic touch, Lee balances the painful details of Ranita’s reality with genuine, persistent hope for new beginnings. It’s irresistible. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.
June 10, 2024
After four years in prison for drug possession, Ranita Atwater is released and tries to get her two kids back. However, she must attend supervised visits with a social worker, submit to urine tests, and attend mandated therapy and substance-recovery meetings. As she counts the days until she's reunited with her children, Ranita looks back at past mistakes, horrible ex-boyfriends, and Maxine, the woman she fell in love with during her incarceration. Machelle Williams gives a powerful performance as present-day Ranita. She vocalizes her as a Black woman who wants to keep it together but oozes desperation, doubt, and sorrow. Ranita tries her best to stay clear of her old crowd and potential vices, but there are temptations. Meanwhile, Janina Edwards tells Ranita's story in third-person, non-chronological flashbacks. Edwards takes Lee's (The Serpent's Gift) lyrical prose and slowly peels each layer that created present Ranita--mostly notably, the intergenerational trauma from her mother. VERDICT With topics such as life after incarceration, mental health among Black people, and a late bloomer coming out as LGBTQIA+, book clubs will flock to Lee's novel. Recommended for all collections.--Anjelica Rufus-Barnes
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