Saint Monkey

This remarkable debut immerses the reader in the lives of two African American teenagers growing up in small-town Kentucky in the late 1950s. Caroline and Audrey inhabit a borderland between the emancipated North and the segregated South at a time when the repressive Fifties are giving way to the more liberated Sixties. The two friends are tied together by loss: Audrey longingly remembers her father, an airman killed in the Korean War, and Caroline's mother is horrifically murdered. Caroline straddles the boundary between beautiful and homely and dreams of going to Hollywood, but it's Audrey, who inherited her father's musical talent and can play jazz piano by ear, who manages to escape to New York City. Discovered at 18 while performing at a funeral, she travels to Harlem, where she plays for a time in the Apollo Theater's house band. But both girls find it difficult to overcome racism and the family ties binding them to their hometown.