I Left My Back Door Open
A Novel
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- €7.99
Publisher Description
A successful female DJ refuses to let a few romantic catastrophes keep her down in award-winning author April Sinclair's dazzlingly soulful novel that was hailed as "a Bridget Jones's Diary for black women" by the New York Times Book Review
Daphne "Dee Dee" Dupree has arrived at age 41 with a career she loves, but a romantic life she doesn't. Insecure about her weight and protective of her often-broken heart, Dee Dee is an expert at hiding her inward struggles from the thousands of Chicago residents who hear her on the radio every night. A successful, charismatic DJ for the local blues station, Dee Dee is still looking for the type of love she's missed since her divorce. After a traumatic event at work, Dee Dee meets Skylar, a union mediator who could be just what she's looking for—if only there weren't so many obstacles in their way.
Meanwhile, Dee Dee's coworker Jade is nearing her own divorce; her best friend, Sharon, has come out of the closet; and Sharon's teenage daughter is dangerously close to a breakdown. As Dee Dee works to ease the problems of her friends, she finally faces her own troubles—both old and new—in this uplifting, thought-provoking novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I am not young, or thin, or white, or beautiful,'' says the narrator of Sinclair's worldly-wise and entertaining new novel. Gun-shy after several catastrophic relationships, Chicago deejay Daphne (Dee Dee) Dupree is an outwardly successful African-American woman aching for self-realization. Sassy from the safety of her broadcasting booth, the heavy-set 41-year-old jauntily offers her weight as the cause of a recent breakup ("The brotha didn't 'preciate my meat"). In reality, Dee Dee struggles with the shame of being fat and bulimic. She yearns for mature love and the self-confidence she's sure will accompany finding the right man. Meanwhile, relationships she's relied on as stable fall into flux: the 20-year marriage of her high school friends Sarita and Phil is falling apart; her best friend, Sharon, has come bursting out of the closet, an enthusiastic lesbian at 40; Jade, her belly-dancing instructor and fellow deejay, is on the cusp of ending an unhappy marriage. Dee Dee's only constant is her cat, Langston. The mixed blessing of a sexual harassment suit at work brings union mediator Skylar into her life. Attraction notwithstanding, their romance is tentative and obstructed; his (white) ex-wife is trying to reconcile with him and his eight-year-old daughter relentlessly blocks her father's new interest. In the course of sorting all this out, Dee Dee takes stock and faces some long repressed childhood memories. Refreshingly upbeat and robustly spiritual, the novel steers clear of sentimental inspirational writing by means of its frank and funny dialogue, and follows Sinclair's (Coffee Will Make You Black; Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice) earlier successes admirably. Paperback rights to Avon; author tour.
