![]() ![]() It is in sketching portraits of the women in her life, her aunt and her mother, the women who come to have their hair done, the women who come to chat and gossip, that Joan begins laughing again, begins living. And now this house is the only place Joan has left. ![]() ![]() August lives there still, running a salon where the neighbourhood women gather. Fifty years ago, Hazel's husband was lynched by his all-white police squad, yet she made a life for herself and her daughters in the majestic house he built for them. They are no strangers to adversity resilience runs in their blood. This house full of history is home to the women of the North family. But when the front door opens, she does remember Derek. How the smell of honeysuckle is almost overwhelming as she climbs the porch steps to the house where her mother grew up. She doesn't know she's as likely to hear a gunshot ring out as the sound of children playing. She doesn't remember the bustle of Beale Street on a summer's night. Joan was only a child the last time she visited Memphis. Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023 Shortlisted for The Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2022 ![]()
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