About this item
Highlights
- Not yet a woman yet more than a little girl, Rae Dodson is caught up in her family's drama.
- Author(s): Bridgett M Davis
- 320 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Coming of Age
Description
About the Book
As a young girl in the 1970s struggles to make sense of her budding sexuality and keep her splintered family together, she is forced to admit that her mother may be incapable of love and her father's love may be too all-consuming.Book Synopsis
Not yet a woman yet more than a little girl, Rae Dodson is caught up in her family's drama. Her hip older sister, Kimmie, whom her mother favors, has moved from New Orleans to join them in Detroit, a city that moves as if in synch with the Stevie Wonder tunes that play giddily from new automobiles fresh off the factory lots. Her bid whist-playing mother is as nervous as ever, and her father's chronic migraines seem less responsive to medication. And while they all occupy the same house, they might as well be living separate lives. When the tenuous peace finally breaks, Rae must decide where her loyalties lie: should she choose her emotionally distant mother, whom she adores, or her affectionate but needy father? Rae does choose and launches into a rich, loving relationship with her dad, for whom she shows a fierce, undying loyalty. But as she matures, she must find a way amid her own budding sexuality to be both Daddy's girl and her own woman.
Review Quotes
"Lyrical...addictive...haunting. This beautiful coming-of-age story and will assuredly capture many hearts." -- Trisha R. Thomas, author of Would I Lie to You?
"Wonderful....In this book...there is...a poignancy that cuts incisively through the tender tissue of family love." -- Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle
"Shifting Through Neutral is a beautifully rendered story by a writer to watch." -- Benilde Little, author of Acting Out and Good Hair
"A vibrant...journey through a young woman's coming-of-age....Hop in--this novel is a ride well worth taking. -- Martha Southgate, author of The Fall of Rome
"A beautifully rendered first novel that captures the complications of children caught between discontented parents with secret lives." -- Washington Post
"A tender telling that made me long for my own father." -- Africana.com
"Richly detailed and intimate...Davis eloquently paints a picture seldom seen: the abiding affection black fathers have for their children." -- Detroit Free Press
"The author's prose is poignant, like a strong left hook...sad, but endearing...written with precision and skill." -- Atlanta Daily World Celebration of Books Fall 2004