Finding Me

When her twin sister is severely burned in an explosion that kills their father, eleven-year-old Blaze James must stay with a free-spirited and unconventional neighbor who opens her eyes to a whole new world, while her sister Aerial goes with their mother for treatment in Baton Rouge. Original.

Ford's newest is a Southern coming-of-age involving an estranged twin waking to sexuality and love. Eleven-year-old Blaze James lives in the shadow of her twin sister, Aerial, until a gas explosion leaves Aerial horribly scarred. While her sister recovers, Blaze spends a formative year in the care of a neighbor, Felicity Hardaway, an exotic (though closeted) lesbian in close-minded Shreveport, La. After years away at school, Blaze returns and begins a passionate affair with Hardaway. Despite the town's condemnation and Hardaway's insistence that she doesn't want to get serious, Blaze is determined to fight for the emotionally abusive relationship. When Hardaway disappears, Blaze turns to next-door neighbor Nate for solace—and, as it turns out, much more. Ford's Shreveport is an unforgiving place—swampy, seductive and judgmental—that's reflected in her blunt but intoxicating prose. Unfortunately, Ford's intriguing story begs for a better protagonist; Blaze is contrary, indecisive and not nearly as smart as she thinks she is, making decisions at whim. Hardaway, on the other hand, is charismatic and flawed, prideful and vulnerable; by the end, one can't help feeling they were following the wrong character. (Feb.)
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This latest effort from spoken-word artist Ford is a southern-set, fast-moving coming-of-age tale with the immediacy of informal storytelling and intimate conversation somewhat like Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, but in times that have changed. Ford focuses on Blaze James, identical twin and soul mate to Aerial, who is horribly burnt and scarred in a fire that kills their drunken, abusive father and destroys their shacklike home in Shreveport, Louisiana. Cared for by neighboring Miss Felicity Hardaway while Mom’s away with hospitalized Aerial, the 11-year-old Blaze observes Miss Felicity’s somewhat graphically depicted lesbian sexual activities, setting the scene for Blaze’s own early-teen gropings with an older girl. After discovery and resultant banishment to a faraway boarding school by her mom and wealthy stepfather, now located in California, beautiful Blaze emerges at 18 with marketable fashion-design skills and returns to Shreveport, where her aimless yearnings become definite designs on Miss Felicity. A riveting tale of aching love, deceit, and shifting points on the continuum of human sexuality. --Whitney Scott