Light skin gone to waste : stories / by Toni Ann Johnson.
Material type: TextSeries: Flannery O'Connor Award for Short FictionPublisher: Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Description: 216 pages ; 22 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780820363066
- 0820363065
Item type | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Dr. James Carlson Library | Fiction | JOHNSON, TONI | Available | 33111011016355 | |||||
Adult Book | Main Library | Fiction | In Case You Missed It | JOHNSON, TONI | ICYMI: Recently New | Available | 33111010911663 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
In 1962 Philip Arrington, a psychologist with a PhD from Yeshiva, arrives in the small, mostly blue-collar town of Monroe, New York, to rent a house for himself and his new wife. They're Black, something the man about to show him the house doesn't know. With that, we're introduced to the Arringtons: Phil, Velma, his daughter Livia (from a previous marriage), and his youngest, Madeline, soon to be born. They're cosmopolitan. Sophisticated. They're also troubled, arrogant, and throughout the linked stories, falling apart.
We follow the family as Phil begins his private practice, as Velma opens her antiques shop, and as they buy new homes, collect art, go skiing, and have overseas adventures. It seems they've made it in the white world. However, young Maddie, one of the only Black children in town, bears the brunt of the racism and the invisible barriers her family's money, education, and determination can't free her from. As she grows up and realizes her father is sleeping with white women, her mother is violently mercurial, and her half-sister resents her, Maddie must decide who she is despite, or perhaps precisely because of, her family.
"Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction"--Page before title page.
Up that hill -- Claiming Tobias -- Lucky -- Wings made of rocks -- Better -- Light skin gone to waste -- The way we fell out of touch -- Got to be real -- Make a space -- Time travel.
"In 1962 Philip Arrington, a psychologist with a PhD from Yeshiva, arrives in the small, mostly blue-collar town of Monroe, New York, to rent a house for himself and his new wife. They're Black, something the man about to show him the house doesn't know. With that, we're introduced to the Arringtons: Phil, Velma, his daughter Livia (from a previous marriage), and his youngest, Madeline, soon to be born. They're cosmopolitan. Sophisticated. They're also troubled, arrogant, and throughout the linked stories, falling apart. We follow the family as Phil begins his private practice, and as Velma opens her antiques shop, as they buy new homes, collect art, go skiing, and have overseas adventures. It seems they've made it in the white world. However, young Maddie, one of the only Black children in town, bears the brunt of the racism and the invisible barriers her family's money, education, and determination can't free her from. As she grows up, and realizes her father's sleeping with white women, her mother is violently mercurial, and her half-sister resents her, Maddie must decide who she is despite, or perhaps precisely because of, her family. A dazzling collection, Light Skin Gone to Waste examines race, class, community, family, and the meaning of home."-- Provided by publisher.