Hilda Effania couldn’t think of enough to cook. She couldn’t even clean anything else in her house. She looked at Alfred’s portrait over the parlor fireplace, a little embarrassed.

“You know, Al, I did the best I could, but I don’t think they want what we wanted.”

“Now, Sassafrass. This ain’t nothin’ but a baby. You think you the only one ever did this?” Indigo coached. “Push I say, don’t act a fool!”

“Mama did this three times. God is asking you for one time. One time make a free child.” Cypress massaged.

“Yes, darlin’. I’m here. Was there ever one time when you couldn’t come home? Yes, darlin’, I know this isn’t the way you wanted. But, sweetheart, whoever you are is all we have & I swear for Jesus, you my child.”

Mama was there.

Acknowledgments

This book was made possible by grants from The Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the MacDowell Colony.

I thank Bonnie Daniels, who unfailingly assisted me with the varied manuscripts that became the novel. I must also thank my editor, Michael Denneny, for believing the novel was lingering in my soul.

Praise

Praise for Ntozake Shange

“If there are shoulders modern African-American women’s literature stands upon, they belong to Ntozake Shange, who revolutionized theater and literature with her iconic work for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf in the 1970s. Any of us writing today are inheritors of her genius.”

—Sapphire, author of Push

“Shange is a superb storyteller who keeps her eye on what brings her characters together rather than what separates them.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“Ntozake Shange is a unique and gifted literary executant and works under strong impulses to do things her own way despite settled conventions of craft.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“Shange may well set herself along such writers as Toni Morrison and Isabel Allende—creators of poetic and historical tours de force.”

—Vibe

“A powerful vision and perfect ear . . . Shange brilliant captures . . . disparate places and times.”

—The Boston Globe

“No contemporary writer has Ms. Shange’s uncanny gift for immersing herself within the situations and points-of-view of so many different types of women. No wonder she has achieved an almost oracular status among her female readers. She is a writer of many masks. She can serenade you, and she can cut you; she can chirp, as well as growl; she can delight, as well as antagonize.”

—Ishmael Reed

“Ntozake Shange’s writings compose one long, continuous song: by part blues medley, swaying gospel melody, plaintive torch ballad.”

—The Washington Times

Also by Ntozake Shange

ALSO BY NTOZAKE SHANGE

THEATER

for colored girls who have considered suicide/
when the rainbow is enuf
Three Pieces:
Spell #7
A Photograph: Lovers in Motion
Boogie Woogie Landscapes

POETRY

Nappy Edges
A Daughter’s Geography
Ridin’ the Moon in Texas
The Love Space Demands

FICTION