LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2024 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN GREATNESS
The acclaimed author of The Serpent's Gift returns with this "poignant and beautiful" story (bestselling author of New York Times Jaqueline Woodson) about a quirky black woman who strives to stay clean, clean. her life together and mend after she was released from prison.
Ranita Atwater was "cut off".
She is about to finish her four-year sentence for drug possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. After being absent for three years, she was determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children. Ranita regains her freedom, but she leaves behind her lover Maxine, who inspires her to imagine herself and the world differently.“My name is Ranita and I am a drug addict,” she said many times in recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who can she choose to become? Now she must avoid the temptations that dragged her down, while atoneing for her mistakes and facing old wounds. With a strong, intelligent, and sometimes humorous voice, Ranita reveals how bumpy and winding a black woman's road to happiness is, even as she relies on her family, her memory, faith and love to choose life.Pomegranate is a complex portrait of black and marginalized queer women in America, written by an author “working at the height of her powers” (Tayari Jones, book New York Times bestseller). In precise and lyrical prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane, calm portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and drug addiction, as well as one person's determination to tell her story. women.
