Our Gen
A Novel
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- 21,99 €
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- 21,99 €
Publisher Description
“Our Gen is warm and smart, accessible yet meaningful, a beach read with strong writing and emotional heft.”—BookPage
Residents of an active-living retirement community revert to lives of youthful indulgence, even as time-bomb secrets of their pasts tick toward explosion.
The Gen—short for Sexagenarian—is an upscale fifty-five-plus community located in the bucolic suburbs of Philadelphia. Main character Cynthia befriends the Gen’s two other Black residents, Bloc and Tish, as well as Lavia, who everyone assumes is from India. They regularly convene to smoke weed, line dance, and debate politics and philosophy as the wine goes down like silk. Their camaraderie is exhilarating.
But beneath the fun and froth, storms gather. With its walls of windows gushing light and air, the Gen becomes the catalyst for secrets to be exposed.
Shifting the narrative between the characters’ pasts and the present day, Diane McKinney-Whetstone deftly builds suspense as she captures with insight, poignancy, and humor, the scars, tenderness, and swagger of those not yet old, but no longer young, coming to the mean acceptance that life is finite after all, who knew.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McKinney-Whetstone (Lazaretto) spins a funny and unsettling story set in a retirement community outside Philadelphia, where four boomers, all people of color, forge strong bonds and address the horrors of their past lives. Bloc, a retired scientist, is the only Black man in the complex. The book begins with him entering a social held by the community, but unfortunately, Bloc is prematurely showing the effects of a male enhancement drug he took earlier, hoping he might consummate his burgeoning relationship with Tish, a gorgeous and wily Black woman. Their friend group also includes Lavia, a woman of color who keeps up an air of mystery about her origins. When Cynthia, another Black woman, arrives, a love triangle heats up involving her, Bloc, and Tish, until they realize how important it is to maintain their relationships in a majority-white space. Bloc shares how he was sexually assaulted as a child, and Tish how her father was found dead on the steps of a brothel. By the end, the author reveals how Cynthia's history dovetails with Tish's, and the secrets of Lavia's past. The plot is rather convenient, and the repeated weed smoking and classic R&B references start to wear thin, though McKinney-Whetstone demonstrates a keen understanding of her characters. It makes for a refreshing view of a generation so often presented as white.
