Book Description
Publication Date: January 31, 2012
Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi—a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families.
Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit.
Forty years later, after the death of her husband, Tass returns to Money and fantasy takes flesh when Emmett Till's spirit is finally released from the dank, dark waters of the Tallahatchie River. The two lovers are reunited, bringing the story to an enchanting and profound conclusion.
Gathering of Waters mines the truth about Money, Mississippi, as well as the Bryant and Hilson families, and threads their history over decades. The bare-bones realism—both disturbing and riveting—combined with a magical realm in which ghosts have the final say, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Beloved.
Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including the classic Sugar and Glorious, which was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine; selected as the debut title for the One Book, One Harlem program; and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. Show More She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her sophomore novel The Warmest December was praised by Nobel Prize–winning author Toni Morrison as "searing and expertly imagined." McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit.
Forty years later, after the death of her husband, Tass returns to Money and fantasy takes flesh when Emmett Till's spirit is finally released from the dank, dark waters of the Tallahatchie River. The two lovers are reunited, bringing the story to an enchanting and profound conclusion.
Gathering of Waters mines the truth about Money, Mississippi, as well as the Bryant and Hilson families, and threads their history over decades. The bare-bones realism—both disturbing and riveting—combined with a magical realm in which ghosts have the final say, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Beloved.
Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including the classic Sugar and Glorious, which was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine; selected as the debut title for the One Book, One Harlem program; and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. Show More She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her sophomore novel The Warmest December was praised by Nobel Prize–winning author Toni Morrison as "searing and expertly imagined." McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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