Meet Me in the Garden
A Novel
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“A MASTERPIECE that stands as an EXCEPTIONAL work of historical fiction…This character-driven beauty is an immersive, heartfelt TRIUMPH. It is a fantastic MUST-READ that will resonate deeply with fans of Alice Walker and Brit Bennett.” —Booklist (STARRED review)
“SWEEPING and PROFOUND.” —People (MOST ANTICIPATED)
Featured on NPR'S ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
From BESTSELLING, AWARD-WINNING author Nina LaCour comes a GORGEOUS FAMILY STORY about self-discovery and love in all forms, inspired by the author's Creole roots
New Orleans, 1944. Odette has always been one of the Honore sisters, glamorous and admired in their Creole community. But while Odette’s older sisters are content to be wives and mothers, Odette has always wanted something else. It is only with her beloved cousin, Delphine, that Odette can tell her secret: she is in love with a woman, and she longs to be an artist. Delphine has a secret lover, too, a white man. In the hidden garden they’ve discovered, Odette and Delphine can dream of futures full of passion and freedom.
But five years later, Odette's life is nothing like what she'd planned. She's a widowed mother, living in Los Angeles, and she and Delphine, who is passing as white, have spiraled away from each other. When Delphine reaches a breaking point, Odette must make a shattering choice to try to hold her family together.
Profound and expansive, a story of love and longing, art and motherhood, friendship and desire, Meet Me in the Garden is a decades-spanning tour de force, inspired by the author’s family and tracing the history of the Great Migration.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Nina LaCour dips and dives through powerful issues of race and sexuality in this expansive historical drama. In 1944, Odette can’t tell her tight-knit Creole family about Hattie, the woman she desperately loves. When she reluctantly agrees to marry Hattie’s brother before he ships out for World War II, it reshapes her life almost instantly—suddenly, she’s a pregnant widow. Odette barely knows who she is as she relocates with her family from New Orleans to Los Angeles to escape Jim Crow. LaCour’s lush, transfixing writing pulls you into Odette’s journey. She’s both a Black woman who’s frequently mistaken for white and a queer woman living in a rigidly straight world, and the thorny theme of passing comes up for her again and again. And yet, even as dramatic and sometimes tragic events unfold, the flickering possibility that Odette might find a way to live her truth is never extinguished. Meet Me in the Garden is a captivating, insightful tale of struggle and perseverance.
