Kirkus
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The daughter of a well-to-do Black family is drawn into the Civil Rights Movement. Three decades later, her daughter pushes limits and uncovers family secrets. Johnson’s powerful second novel begins with Freda Gilroy’s first day at Nashville’s Fisk University in 1959. She has instructions from her parents to be excellent and above reproach. They’ve already identified a medical student, Gerald Vance, to be her future husband. The Chicago girl is stunned by the racism she experiences in the South, segregation nothing like what she’s seen back home. Her parents have forbidden her to get involved in protests, but she’s drawn in by Darius Moore, a handsome saxophone player and Civil Rights activist who gives soul-stirring speeches. She’s thrown into a dilemma—her college years are spent resisting her feelings for Darius, hiding her activism, and then weighing which man, and which kind of life, she wants to choose. Three decades later, Freda’s daughter, Tulip, a public relations professional, has defied her parents by dating a working-class man. Key, her boyfriend of two years, is a bus driver. She is uncomfortable as one of few Black employees at her PR agency and is striving for a promotion. She’s stunned when the police officers who attacked Rodney King are acquitted and feels driven to speak up. In doing so, she learns more about her work, her parents, her lover, and herself. Each of the main characters are sympathetic, even as they make choices that lead to pain for others. Johnson doesn’t flinch from the terror young activists experienced in the Civil Rights era, and by exploring the parallels in Tulip’s life 30 years later, Johnson emphasizes that while some things change, racism stays the same. A heart-wrenching story of love, family, racism, and resistance across decades. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.