Wade in the water : a novel

"An impressive debut. Emotionally honest with lyricism and charm to spare, Nyani Nkrumah's Wade in the Water depicts in riveting detail a racially charged Mississippi town, the secrets it holds, and the precious heart and soul of a young girl deserving love."—Diane McKinney-Whetstone, author of Our Gen and Tumbling "Fearless. . . . Vividly bring[s] to life rural 1980s Mississippi."—People "A dreamy, brutal, and revelatory reading experience that quickens the pulse and tugs the heart."—Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Carry Me Home Resonant with the emotional urgency of Alice Walker's classic Meridian and the poignant charm of Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, a gripping debut novel of female power and vulnerability, race, and class that explores the unlikely friendship between a precocious black girl and a mysterious white woman in a small Mississippi town in the early 1980s. Set in 1982, in rural, racially divided Ricksville, Mississippi Wade in the Water tells the story of Ella, a black, unloved, precocious eleven-year-old, and Ms. St. James, a mysterious white woman from Princeton who appears in Ella's community to carry out some research. Soon, Ms. St. James befriends Ella, who is willing to risk everything to keep her new friend in a town that does not want her there. The relationship between Ella and Ms. St. James, at times loving and funny and other times tense and cautious, becomes more fraught and complex as Ella unwittingly pushes at Ms. St. James's carefully constructed boundaries that guard a complicated past, and dangerous secrets that could have devastating consequences. Told in two voices, Ella's and Ms. St. James's, and set around richly developed characters, this riveting, page turning coming of age story will keep readers entranced until the last shocking revelation. Told in two voices, Ellas and Ms. St. Jamess, andsetaround richly developed characters, this riveting, page turning coming of age story will keep readers entranced until the last shocking revelation. Resonant with the emotional urgency of Alice Walker's classic Meridian and the poignant charm of Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees , a gripping debut novel of female power and vulnerability, race, and class that explores the unlikely friendship between a precocious black girl and a mysterious white woman in a small Mississippi town in the early 1980s. Eleven-year-old Ella lives in the racially divided town of Ricksville, Mississippi, not far from where the Freedom Summer Murders occurred. Too smart for her own good, she loves God, Mr. Macabe, and Nate, the tough owner of the local diner. To her perpetually irritated Ma, and Leroy, her mother's lover, Ella is an unwanted nuisance. But Ella pays them no mind. She has a precious secret, and she isn't telling. One day, a sharply dressed, well-to-do white woman appears on Ella's street, looking for the girl. The arrival of Ms. St. James puts the Black side of town on edge. Why is this white woman making friends with a little Black girl? Who is she and what does she want? When Ms. St. James begins tutoring Ella, the bond between these two unlikely friends deepens, and soon Ella is willing to risk anything and everything to keep Ms. St. James in a community itching to see her gone. Like Ella, Ms. St. James has secrets--knowledge she keeps in a black notebook filled with scribbled pages. Secrets that will ultimately come out with devastating consequences. Alternately told in Ella and Ms. St. James's captivating voices, and moving back and forth in time from the 1960s to the 1980s, Nyaneba Nkrumah's engrossing coming-of-age story explores the search to define ourselves, free from the tangled web of truths and lies we are told--the lies that we tell ourselves, and the historical facts that are told as fiction.