About this item
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.A modern-day story of family, loss, and renewal, Halsey Street captures the deeply human need to belong - not only to a place but to one another.Penelope Grand has scrapped her failed career as an artist in Pittsburgh and moved back to Brooklyn to keep an eye on her ailing father. Shes accepted that her future wont be what shed dreamed, but now, as gentrification has completely reshaped her old neighborhood, even her past is unrecognizable. Old haunts have been razed, and wealthy white strangers have replaced every familiar face in Bed-Stuy. Even her mother, Mirella, has abandoned the family to reclaim her roots in the Dominican Republic. That took courage. Its also unforgivable.When Penelope moves into the attic apartment of the affluent Harpers, she thinks shes found a semblance of family - and maybe even love. But her world is upended again when she receives a postcard from Mirella asking for reconciliation. As old wounds are reopened, and secrets revealed, a journey across an ocean of sacrifice and self-discovery begins.An engrossing debut, Halsey Street shifts between the perspectives of these two captivating, troubled women. Mirella has one last chance to win back the heart of the daughter shed lost long before leaving New York, and for Penelope, its time to break free of the hold of the past and start navigating her own life.
About the Author
Naima Coster is the author of two novels. Her debut, Halsey Street, was a finalist for the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and recommended as a must-read by People, Essence, Well-Read Black Girl, The Skimm, and the Brooklyn Public Library among others. Naima's forthcoming novel, What's Mine and Yours, will be published in March 2021.Naima's stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Kweli, The Paris Review Daily, The Cut, The Sunday Times, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. In 2020, she received the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" honor. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
