Ta-Dah!

I didn't know People did book reviews. Why is my book labeled "Novel" while Grafton's book is labeled "Fiction." Dare I ask?

page 59:

(3 out of 4 stars) Innocence, it seems, can be hard to crush: Nine-year-old Sandrine Miller--the straight-A student in 1970s New Orleans who narrates Johnson's heartbreaking debut--is beaten by her mother, abandoned by her loving but restless father and sexually abused by two family friends. Yet she's too young to realize the horror of it all; astonishingly, she remains unshakeably [sic] loyal to the grown-ups who let her down. Until the day she cracks: "I heard what sounded like a thick old voice but slowly recognized it as mine, full of tears, hoarse, broken by hiccup sobs." The only thing this affecting story lacks is a bigger picture, wondering how the wounded Sandrine will fare as an adult, readers may be left wishing Tomorrow could write back.

Not Just an Announcment--A Post!

I keep saying I'll actually post here...I had an excellent opportunity while on the reading tour with Preston Allen. I need lots more friends like Preston. He's crazy funny, wise, open, thoughtful, a hell of a writer, a great person all around. I can't wait to really host him in NO--food, Misery Tour, Harrah's, Central City, beignets, po-boys and brass bands.

I may have a big national review tomorrow, the biggest yet. I don't know if I really believe it. When I see it, then I'll believe. It just seems too crazy....

Book Notes: Largehearted Boy

Book Notes - Dedra Johnson ("Sandrine’s Letter to Tomorrow")

Reading: Nov. 13: Dillard University

Review: Times-Picayune, Nov. 4

Only a Day Away by Susan Larsen:

Johnson perfectly captures the voice of a young girl, searching for acceptance and friendship. In Sister Paul and the nuns at her New Orleans school, Sandrine finds mentors and models for kindness; in the women who work at her father's clinic, she finds solace. In a new life with her father, she allows herself to feel "small and safe," confident that she has come home at last. After such a bleak existence, she is allowed that ray of hope, that most basic right of childhood.

Reading: Nov. 5: Garden District Book Shop