{"product_id":"9781668024553","title":"Black Cherokee","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eQueenie\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eFrying Plantain \u003c\/i\u003ein this courageous coming-of-age story, set in the 1990s, about a mixed-race Black girl fighting for recognition in a South Carolina Cherokee community that refuses to accept her ancestry as legitimate.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the rain-swollen banks of the River Etsi in South Carolina, Ophelia Blue Rivers—six years old in 1992—catches frogs and stretches to reach the swaying sunflowers. She’s an orphan raised in a rustic cabin by her Grandma Blue, a descendent of the Black Cherokee Freedmen. Caught in deep currents of history that she doesn’t understand, she is, as her grandma says: “half Black, half Cherokee, and all mixed up.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhile Ophelia may not always understand where she came from, there’s no mistaking where she’d rather be: caught in the warmth of Grandma Blue’s cabin, listening to bedtime Cherokee legends as collard greens hiss in the frying pan.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut one day, a tall stranger with a black denim jacket and a charming smile appears, and his arrival shatters Ophelia’s world. She finds herself whisked away from all she knows to live with her Auntie Oba, the boisterous woman she had only met in rumours.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSo begins Ophelia’s spirited, at times harrowing, search for home and family—a journey that takes her from a majority-white high school to the inner sanctum of a Black evangelical church to the throbbing dance floors of underground Southern clubs and to a final, devastating encounter with the scion of a wealthy, white family. She must ask herself: What does it mean to belong when the terms of that belonging come at such a high price?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWith dazzling language, keen insight, and an unforgettable voice, \u003ci\u003eBlack Cherokee\u003c\/i\u003e is not only an astonishing novel but a profound meditation on race, identity, and coming of age from a major literary talent.","brand":"Antonio Michael Downing (CA)","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":48996725260530,"sku":"9781668024553","price":25.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0541\/2713\/2865\/files\/BNCImageAPI_5787d49d-b356-4f7b-8832-8afe071e208d.jpg?v=1775170634","url":"https:\/\/gatherbookshop.com\/products\/9781668024553","provider":"Gather Books \u0026 Lovely Things","version":"1.0","type":"link"}