What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster – a sweeping, rich tapestry of familial bond and identity, and a sharp, poignant look at the ways race affects even the closest of relationships.

‘What’s Mine and Yours is a book about parents who try and fail and then try again. An extraordinary cast of characters, nuanced and full of insight. Read this book.’ – Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana

When a county initiative in the Piedmont of North Carolina forces the students at a mostly black public school on the east side to move across town to a nearly all-white high school on the west, the community rises in outrage. For two students, quiet and aloof Gee and headstrong Noelle, these divisions will extend far beyond their schooling. As their paths collide and overlap over the course of thirty years, their two seemingly disconnected families begin to form deeply knotted, messy ties that shape the trajectory of their lives.

On one side of the school integration debate is Jade, Gee’s steely, single, black mother, grieving for her murdered partner, and determined for her son to have the best chance at a better life. On the other, is Noelle’s enterprising mother, Lacey May, who refuses to see her half-Latina daughters as anything but white. The choices these mothers make will resound for years to come. And twenty years later, when Lacey’s daughters return home to visit her in hospital, they’re forced to confront the ways their parents’ decisions continue to affect the life they live and the people they love.

With gorgeous prose, Naima Coster explores the unique organism that is every family: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.

About the author

Naima Coster lives in Brooklyn. She has an MA in English from Fordham University and an MFA from Columbia University. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Guernica and The Sunday Times, among others. She was awarded the Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize from the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival for her personal essay ‘Remembering When Brooklyn Was Mine’ in The New York Times. Her debut Halsey Street was a Finalist for the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and longlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.

Categories Africa Fiction International

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