by Asha Bandele (Author)
At nineteen, Aya is a promising Black college student from Brooklyn who is struggling through a difficult relationship with her emotionally distant mother, Miriam. One winter night, Aya is shot by a white police officer in a case of mistaken identity. Keeping vigil by her daughter's hospital bed, Miriam remembers her own youth: her battle for independence from her parents, her affair with Aya's father, and the challenges of raising her daughter. But as Miriam confronts her past -- her losses and regrets -- she begins to heal and discovers a tentative hopefulness.
Author Biography
Asha Bandele served as features editor and writer for Essence magazine, and a Revson Fellow at Columbia University. She is the author of the memoir The Prisoner's Wife and a collection of poetry. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter.