Trading Dreams at Midnight: A Novel - Hardcover

McKinney-Whetstone, Diane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688163866 ISBN 13: 9780688163860

Publisher: Harper, 2008

Synopsis

Fifteen-year-old Neena and her younger sister, Tish, are certain their mother will return, flush with the promise of a new man. But Freeda's disappearance on the cold February morning in 1984 soon stretches from days to months and from months to years. Raised by their stern grandmother Nan, the two sisters quickly learn to look after themselves, fiercely reinventing their lives in the wake of Freeda's absence.

Two decades later, at age thirty-six, Neena has moved away from Philadelphia and supports herself by blackmailing married men. When one of her stings goes terribly wrong, she decides to return to her childhood home. Unable to face her grandmother, Neena attempts to pull one last hustle on a prominent local lawyer. But when she learns that her younger sister has been hospitalized with pregnancy complications, she must decide how to come to terms with the woman who raised her. Reunited, Neena, Tish, and Nan each confronts her own memories of the past, and together reveal their dreams for the future.

Shifting seamlessly through time, Trading Dreams at Midnight is the story of three generations of women bound to each other by shared joy and pain. In the evocative prose that has become her signature, Diane McKinney-Whetstone captures in exquisite detail our lingering, ever-hopeful desires for redemption and rebirth—and reminds us of the possibilities the future may still hold.

About this title

About the Author:

The author of the critically acclaimed novels Tumbling, Tempest Rising, Blues Dancing, Leaving Cecil Street, and Trading Dreams at Midnight, Diane McKinney-Whetstone is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Literary Award for Fiction, which she won twice. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband. For more on Diane McKinney-Whetstone please visit www.mckinney-whetstone.com or follow her on Twitter @Dianemckwh.

From Booklist:

Talented African American author McKinney-Whetstone returns after an absence of four years (Leaving Cecil Street, 2004) with another poignant, multigenerational story set in west Philadelphia. Thirty-six-year-old Neena has spent most of her adult years obsessively searching for her mentally ill mother, who abandoned Neena and her sister, Tish, when they were children. But Neena has run out of options. She has been financing her cross-country travels by engaging in affairs with married men and then blackmailing them, but her latest target not only refused to pay but also locked her out of her condo and cancelled her credit cards. Broke and exhausted, she returns to her hometown but learns that her sister has been hospitalized due to a problem with her pregnancy. She finds herself unable to face her strict, religious grandmother, Nan, who raised her. But over the following weeks, she finds comfort in the music of a mystical street musician and begins to seriously assess the cut-and-run pattern that has defined her life. An achingly tender portrait of familial love and pain. --Joanne Wilkinson

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0688163866
• ISBN 13: 9780688163860
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320