Gather Together in My Name
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the nationally bestselling and Hurston/Wright award-winning author Tracy Price-Thompson comes a heartbreaking story of loyalty and love that goes beyond the ultimate sacrifice.
Coming of age in the heart of crime-ridden Brooklyn, Shyne Blackwood is one in a set of triplets born into poverty and great tragedy. While his brothers are raised to seek a life of promise, Shyne's path veers early on. A street-seasoned hustler, he becomes known as a liar, a thief, and ultimately, a killer.
Personifying many of the negative stereotypes attributed to black men, Shyne is accused and convicted of the brutal murder of a child, and an entire city demands vengeance as he's sent to death row in a cold New York state prison.
On the eve of Shyne's execution, five people travel to Quincy Correctional Facility to witness the event. As the clock counts down to midnight, and while everyone has long since abandoned Shyne to his fate, a secret at the heart of this unthinkable crime remains to be discovered. It is a secret that will test the bonds of family, the strength of one man's character, and the redemptive power of a love worth dying for.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Price-Thompson (Chocolate Sangria) offers a raw, sometimes moving, but flawed novel of triplet boys Gabriel (Shug), Isaiah (Shyne) and Ezekiel (Shadow) Blackwood raised in Brooklyn by their widowed mother. Six witnesses reveal the boys' tragic story as the clock ticks toward Shyne's execution for a horrendous crime he didn't commit, the rape and murder of a woman and her three-year-old child. Shadow, their mother's favorite, dies in an accident at age seven, a death Shyne is blamed for. Shyne becomes a street-wise player who's done time, while Shug, mother's new favorite, manages a path to college, law school and politics, including a bid to become the second black mayor of New York City. As Shyne drops all appeals and awaits execution, his reasons for so doing become clear. Price-Thompson skillfully sketches many of the racial rapids blacks must still navigate, but a number of improbable coincidences such as the prosecutor who sought Shyne's conviction having been sexually involved with Shug at college distract from the author's message.
