Last Summer On State Street

The Stephen Curry Underrated Literati Book Club Pick! “[A] powerful novel.... Tragic, hopeful, brimming with love, Wolfe’s debut is a remarkable achievement.”—New York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more! For fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Brit Bennett, a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer. Even when we lose it all, we find the strength to rebuild. Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes. It’s the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence. But when Fe Fe welcomes a mysterious new friend, Tonya, into their fold, the dynamics shift, upending the lives of all four girls. As their beloved neighborhood falls down around them, so too do their friendships and the structures of the four girls’ families. Fe Fe must make the painful decision of whom she can trust and whom she must let go. Decades later, as she remembers that fateful summer—just before her home was demolished, her life uprooted, and community forever changed—Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left. Profound, reverent, and uplifting, Last Summer on State Street explores the risk of connection against the backdrop of racist institutions, the restorative power of knowing and claiming one’s own past, and those defining relationships which form the heartbeat of our lives. Interweaving moments of reckoning and sustaining grace, debut author Toya Wolfe has crafted an era-defining story of finding a home—both in one’s history and in one’s self. "Toya Wolfe is a storyteller of the highest order. Last Summer on State Street is a stunning debut."—Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers

Looking back at a tragic event that occurred during his thirteenth year, Frank Drum explores how a complicated web of secrets, adultery, and betrayal shattered his Methodist family and their small 1961 Minnesota community.

With 70% of the world’s population expected to live in urban environments by 2050, cities are poised to become the most significant spaces to shape personal and communal identity. As contemporary cities become “event destinations” a dialogue is emerging between the performing arts and the urban context and social fabric. Inspired by the principles of Psychogeography, this collection of essays highlights the performative aspects of cities as landscapes of creative inspiration where curiosity, imagination, playfulness, and the energy of the street combine with contemporary performance practices to create immersive public art experiences. Written by an international cohort of scholar-artists, these essays offer arts practitioners, urban specialists, and general readers a practical guide to experiencing the cityscape as the Artscape.

Look for Robyn’s new book, The Best of Us, a story about family, second chances and choosing to live your best life—order your copy today! Mothers and daughters, sisters and cousins, they lived for summers at the lake house until a tragic accident changed everything. The Summer That Made Us is an unforgettable story about a family learning to accept the past, to forgive and to love each other again. That was then… For the Hempsteads, two sisters who married two brothers and had three daughters each, summers were idyllic. The women would escape the city the moment school was out to gather at the family house on Lake Waseka. The lake was a magical place, a haven where they were happy and carefree. All of their problems drifted away as the days passed in sun-dappled contentment. Until the summer that changed everything. This is now… After an accidental drowning turned the lake house into a site of tragedy and grief, it was closed up. For good. Torn apart, none of the Hempstead women speak of what happened that summer, and relationships between them are uneasy at best to hurtful at worst. But in the face of new challenges, one woman is determined to draw her family together again, and the only way that can happen is to return to the lake and face the truth. Robyn Carr has crafted a beautifully woven story about the complexities of family dynamics and the value of strong female relationships.

New Hampshire’s historic port town is no stranger to ghostly goings-on—from the local TV personality and author of Massachusetts Book of the Dead. A tour of Portsmouth’s back alleys and docksides, filled with the lingering whispers and memories of generations long dead. Venture through the haunted past and present of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, if you dare. Before Portsmouth was a charming seaside community, it was a rough-and-tumble seaport. Hear phantom footsteps in the Point of Pines Burial Ground and mysterious voices at the Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse, haunted by the ghost of its former keeper. Tour guide and hauntings expert Roxie Zwicker takes readers on a tour of the nation’s third-oldest city, where buildings and street corners teem with ghostly stories and legends. Includes photos!

2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.