Till You Hear from Me
A Novel
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4.4 • 22 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Pearl Cleage's Just Wanna Testify and a Till You Hear from Me discussion guide.
From the acclaimed Pearl Cleage, author of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day . . . and Seen It All and Done the Rest, comes an Obama-era romance featuring a cast of unforgettable characters.
Just when it appears that all her hard work on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is about to pay off with a White House job, thirty-five-year-old Ida B. Wells Dunbar finds herself on Washington, D.C.’s post-election sidelines even as her twentysomething counterparts overrun the West Wing. Adding to her woes, her father, the Reverend Horace A. Dunbar, Atlanta civil rights icon and self-described “foot soldier for freedom,” is notoriously featured on an endlessly replayed YouTube clip in which his pronouncements don’t exactly jibe with the new era in American politics.
The Rev’s stinging words and myopic views don’t sound anything like the man who raised Ida to make her mark in the world. When friends call to express their concern, Ida realizes it’s time to head home and see for herself what’s going on. Besides, with her job prospects growing dimmer, getting out of D.C. for a while might be the smartest move she could make.
Back in her old West End neighborhood, Ida runs into childhood friend and smooth political operator Wes Harper, also in town to pay a visit to the Reverend Dunbar, his mentor. Ida doesn’t trust Wes or his mysterious connections for one second, but she can’t deny her growing attraction to him.
While Ida and the Rev try to find the balance between personal loyalties and political realities, they must do some serious soul searching in order to get things back on track before Wes permanently derails their best laid plans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
There's no mistaking the audience Cleage (Seen It All and Done the Rest) intends to reach with her grating new novel. After her work on the Obama campaign, 35-year-old Ida Dunbar expects a placement in the new administration, but it appears her hopes are dashed as a result of statements made by her outspoken father, civil rights legend Rev. Horace Dunbar. After his latest ill-considered remark, longtime family friend Miss Iona calls Ida and asks that she return home to Georgia to check on her father. Meanwhile, Wes Harper, the son of the Rev's closest confidante, returns, but for a different purpose: a Republican operative, he's been tasked with securing the Rev's voter database in order to purge the voting rolls. The author paints those associated with Ida and her father with a broad, loving, brush, while Wes and the Republicans are predictably and cartoonishly villainous. With the exception of remembrances of pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, the book is a tedious polemic, even for those inclined to agree with the narrative's political bent.
