Momma : Gone

Shortlisted for a Doctorow Award in Innovative Fiction

"Momma set me on the jukebox."

So begins the personal story of Denise (Sweetie) Wooten, set between a post–civil rights era New York City and a growing but stale rural Alabama. We are thrust in the midst of a family longing for normalcy, but instead struggling with illness and all that comes with it—denial, anger, misunderstanding, and love. As cultures clash, we see the family through a child's eyes and walk with her as she makes sense of war fought far away, but with effects close to home, and a tragedy that changes her life forever. More truth than not, Momma: Gone is a classic American story of overcoming life's misfortunes to find the bloom on the other side.