Among Others: A Novel - Hardcover

Alienated from her family and her close-knit West Indian Brooklyn community, Della tests the boundaries of her life as she struggles to find a place for herself amid the social, racial, and political turmoil of the 1960s

he can remember, Della has felt as if she's stood on the outside, watching her own life unfold. Della's first memories are of the West Indian island where she was born--its coconut palms, a yard with chickens and a goat. Most particularly, she remembers the image of her parents' light-cinnamon hands against her own small black ones, and later, when her parents moved to Brooklyn, New York, the way the men of the neighborhood tried to make her feel bad about her "dark self." Theses memories, mingled with the anger and confusion they stir up in her, form indelible strands running through her evolving sense of self. But when her father is killed by two white policemen, Della begins to see how her own alienation is a mirror of a larger social rift. Watching as her Brooklyn neighborhood erupts in riots, she finds solace in Gregory, the sweet, smart, and light-skinned boy who lives in her apartment building. Together they discover the joys of sex, love, and music and dream of a day when Gregory wil