Nowhere Is a Place (35 page)

"McFadden makes powerful use of imagery in this fantastical novel of ever-flowing waters and troubled spirits."—
Booklist

"As strange as this may sound, Bernice L. McFadden has created a magical, fantastic novel centered around the notorious tragedy of Emmett Till's murder. This is a startling, beautifully written piece of work."—Dennis Lehane, author of
Mystic River

"In her new novel,
Gathering of Waters
, Bernice McFadden brings her own special vision to the unfortunate story of Emmett Till and his murder in Money, Mississippi. This moving and magical novel, which traces the generations leading up to and away from that horrible night in 1955, drew me in immediately and swept me along through its richly imagined world. I couldn't stop reading, caught up as I was in that enticing place between truth and fantasy, the here-and-now and the what-was, the living and the dead, the ugliness and the beauty, the hatred and the love. What a rich chorus of voices Bernice McFadden has fashioned from this place called Money."—Lee Martin, author of
Break the Skin
and
The Bright Forever

GATHERING OF WATERS
is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi—a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families.

TASS HILSON AND EMMETT TILL were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit.

FORTY YEARS LATER, AFTER THE DEATH OF HER HUSBAND, Tass returns to Money and fantasy takes flesh when Emmett Till's spirit is finally released from the dank, dark waters of the Tallahatchie River. The two lovers are reunited, bringing the story to an enchanting and profound conclusion.

GATHERING OF WATERS
mines the truth about Money, Mississippi, as well as the town's families, and threads their history over decades. The bare-bones realism—both disturbing and riveting—combined with a magical realm in which ghosts have the final say, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's
Beloved
.

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Glorious
is available in paperback and e-book editions. Our printed books are available
from our website
and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. Digital editions of
Glorious
can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes & Noble's Nook Books, the Sony eReader Store, the Kobo Store, Google Play, on iTunes, and on the websites of independent booksellers everywhere.

Award-winning novelist Bernice L. McFadden's highly anticipated new historical novel set amidst the Harlem Renaissance.

Glorious
was a finalist for the 2011 NAACP Image Award for Fiction!

"McFadden's lively and loving rendering of New York hews closely to the jazz-inflected city of myth . . . McFadden has a wonderful ear for dialogue, and her entertaining prose equally accommodates humor and pathos."—
New York Times Book Review

"Bernice L. McFadden's novel
Glorious
, which starts with a bang-up prologue, has a strong main character (based in part on Zora Neale Hurston), hard-driving prose, and historic sweep of several decades, including the years of the Harlem Renaissance, which has always fascinated me."—Jane Ciabattari, National Book Critics Circle President

"The book is sweeping in scope and brings to life the tenuous existence of an African-American artist in the early 20th century."—
Vogue
(Italian edition)

"I hadn't read a word of hers before [
Glorious
], but I will follow her from now on."—Alan Cheuse, NPR

"The novel is so intense and sweeping at the same time. Some of the scenes were terrifying, and some were very comic in the irony of what the narrator was experiencing and what she was actually thinking. The word for a journey like this is picaresque, but the ever-impending tragedy makes that word not quite right for this book."—Susan Straight, author of
A Million Nightingales

"A wonderful, rich read full of passion, history, wonder, and women you will recognize:
Glorious
is just that."—Jill Nelson, author of
Volunteer Slavery
and
Let's Get It On

"The seeming inevitability of cruel fate juxtaposes the triumph of the spirit in this remarkably rich and powerful novel. Bernice McFadden's fully realized characters are complicated, imperfect beings, but if ever a character were worthy of love and honor, it is her Easter Bartlett. This very American story is fascinating; it is also heartbreaking, thought-provoking, and beautifully written."—Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of
The Scenic Route

Glorious
is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights era. Blending fact and fiction,
Glorious
is the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and ultimately revival offers a candid and true portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.

It is a novel informed by the question that is the title of Langston Hughes's famous poem: What happens to a dream deferred? Based on years of research, this heart-wrenching fictional account is given added resonance by factual events coupled with real and imagined larger-than-life characters.
Glorious
is an audacious exploration into the nature of self-hatred, love, possession, ego, betrayal, and, finally, redemption.

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The Warmest December
is available in paperback and e-book editions. Our printed books are available
from our website
and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. Digital editions of
The Warmest December
can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes & Noble's Nook Books, the Sony eReader Store, the Kobo Store, Google Play, on iTunes, and on the websites of independent booksellers everywhere.

The long-awaited reissue of McFadden's best-selling second novel praised by Toni Morrison,
USA Today
, the
Washington Post
, and others—published simultaneously with McFadden's new novel
Gathering of Waters
.

"McFadden's reissued second novel takes an unflinching look at the corrosive nature of alcoholism . . . This is not a story of easy redemption . . . McFadden writes candidly about the treacherous hold of addiction."—
Publishers Weekly

"Riveting . . . so nicely avoids the sentimentality that swirls around the subject matter. I am as impressed by its structural strength as by the searing and expertly imagined scenes."—Toni Morrison, author of
Beloved

"The sharpness of the prose and power of the story make it hard to stop reading even the most brutal scenes . . . The story feels real perhaps because it's familiar . . . Or maybe, as Frey points out, the story is too vivid to be read purely as fiction. But in this
Precious
-style novel, genre is the least of our concerns."—
Bust
magazine

"[A] masterpiece . . . full of heart and emotion . . . I hope you love the book as much as I did, and I hope it moves you as much as it did me, changes you as it did me."—James Frey, author of
A Million Little Pieces
, from the Introduction

"Riveting."—
Essence

"Ms. McFadden is one of those rare talents who can keep a reader enthralled regardless of the topic . . . This is a story that cuts across all race and social strata in its need to be told."—
Dallas Morning News

"The Warmest December is written with a searing and vivid quality that makes it impossible to stop reading."—
Cleveland Plain Dealer

FOR KENZIE, GROWING UP IN THE LOWE HOUSEHOLD means opening the bottom drawer of her father's dresser to choose which belt she'll be whipped with that night, furtive trips to the Bee Hive liquor store for her father's vodka, and dreaming of the day she can escape apartment 5A.

BUOYED BY THE LYRICAL, REDEMPTIVE VOICE that characterizes McFadden's writing,
The Warmest December
tells the powerful, deeply moving story of one Brooklyn family and the alcoholism and abuse that marked the years of their lives. Narrated by Kenzie Lowe, a young woman reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, the story moves fluidly between the past and the present as she visits her dying father and finds that choices she once thought beyond her control are very much hers to make.
The Warmest December
is ultimately a cathartic tale of hope, healing, and forgiveness.

BERNICE L. McFADDEN
is the author of eight critically acclaimed novels including the classic
Sugar, Gathering of Waters
(a
New York Times
Editors' Choice/2012 Notable Book of the Year), and
Glorious,
which was featured in
O, The Oprah Magazine
and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the BCALA. Her sophomore novel,
The Warmest December,
was praised by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison as "searing and expertly imagined." McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York.

About Akashic Books

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Akashic Books is an award-winning independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction by authors who are either ignored by the mainstream, or who have no interest in working within the ever-consolidating ranks of the major corporate publishers. Akashic Books hosts additional imprints, including the Akashic Noir Series, the Akashic Drug Chronicles Series, the Akashic Urban Surreal Series, Punk Planet Books, Dennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery Series, Open Lens, Chris Abani's Black Goat Poetry Series, and AkashiClassics: Renegade Reprint Series.

Our books are available from our website and at online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. 

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