Patsy

“Tru's face closes as though she has already figured out that promises are merely sweet lies.”

Beating with the pulse of a long-witheld confession, gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first―not to give a better life to her family back home. leaves Tru behind in a defiant act of self-preservation, hoping for a new start where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But when arrives in Brooklyn, America is not as Cicely’s treasured letters described; to survive as an undocumented immigrant, she is forced to work as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Meanwhile, Tru builds a faltering relationship with her father back in Jamaica, grappling with her own questions of identity and sexuality, and trying desperately to empathize with her mother’s decision.

  Product Info

Publisher: ‎ Liveright
Date: June 4, 2019
Language: ‎ English
Paperback: ‎ 431 pages
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1631497896

  Full Description

When gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But ’s plans don’t include her overzealous, evangelical mother―or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru.

Beating with the pulse of a long-witheld confession, gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first―not to give a better life to her family back home. leaves Tru behind in a defiant act of self-preservation, hoping for a new start where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But when arrives in Brooklyn, America is not as Cicely’s treasured letters described; to survive as an undocumented immigrant, she is forced to work as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Meanwhile, Tru builds a faltering relationship with her father back in Jamaica, grappling with her own questions of identity and sexuality, and trying desperately to empathize with her mother’s decision.

Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, weaves between the lives of and Tru in vignettes spanning more than a decade as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.

  Content Warnings

Suicide Attempt
Self Harm
Homophobia
Domestic Abuse
Sexual Violence
Mental Illness
Child Abuse
Rape
Miscarriage
Racism
Abandonment