The Mothers by Brit Bennett (2016)

[jserraglio]

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

Engaging style and characters.

Wikipedia

The book follows Nadia, a young woman who left her Southern California hometown years ago after the suicide of her mother and is called back to attend to a family emergency.

Bennett began writing the novel when she was 17 years old. She used many elements of her own life to craft the narrative; she and the protagonist, Nadia, were both high-achievers who maintained close ties to their families even after leaving home for college. Nadia's hometown is based on Bennett's hometown of Oceanside, California, an ethnically-diverse beach town. Bennett continued to work on the novel after leaving for college and while completing her MFA at University of Michigan.

In 2014 Bennett published a viral essay on Jezebel.com called "I Don’t Know What to Do With Good White People", shortly after the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Literary agent Julia Kardon read the essay and contacted Bennett to offer her representation to write and sell a book, which became her manuscript, The Mothers.