The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

A Coretta Scott King Honor Book

Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus's bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both.

Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she's going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor's daughter. Audre's grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won't lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. America have dey spirits too, believe me, she tells Audre.

Minneapolis, USA. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels--about her ex Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that's plagued her all summer. Mabel's reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner.

Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly it's Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.

Junauda Petrus's debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.

Junauda Petrus is a writer, pleasure activist, filmmaker, and performance artist of Black-Caribbean heritage who was born on Dakota land. Wildness, queerness, Black-diasporic-futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, shimmer, and emancipation are all themes in her work. The Stars and the Blackness Between Them, her debut work, received a Coretta Scott King award. She, her wife, and their children live in Minneapolis. www.junauda.com is a website dedicated to the music of Junauda.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780525555490
ISBN 10	0525555498
Title	The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
Author	Junauda Petrus
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2020-06-23
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.