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In
his breathtaking debut,The
View From Here, Brian
Keith Jackson took us inside the heart of black family life
in the rural South, where a woman struggle with marriage, pregnancy,
and desire. Now, in a novel that resonates with pure emotion and
the unwavering strength of the ties that bind families, he sends
photographer Jeremy Bishop back to a Louisiana town for the funeral
that marks the end of his father's life-and the true beginning of
his own.
His
grandmother, Mama B, called him Patience. Jeremy was, she said,
the most agreeable child, never crying out his needs. Jeremy would
have liked to tell her that, even while growing up in Elsewhere,
Louisiana, his hidden wants festered deep inside him. His mother
died just hours after his birth, and Mama B and his Aunt Jess raised
him after his father disappeared. Even after his dad returned on
day with his new family, Jeremy kept his distance from his one living
parent. But it is a decade later, and Jeremy, now a successful New
York photographer gets a phone call from Louisiana. It is time for
Jeremy Bishop to journey the long way home t help bury his father.
In
the graveyard where his father's body will be laid to rest; in a
stranger's appearance at the wake; in a suicide; a murder; and finally
inside a cardboard box that had belonged to his father, Jeremy will
find himself in ways he never imagines. Remembering his youth in
flashbacks as texture as the denim patch in his grandmother's rocking
chair, he weaves together past and present--and explores the ever
shifting consents made between parents and children, husbands and
wives, sisters and brothers.
A
novel at once astonishing and universally human, WALKING THROUGH
MIRRORS is Brian Keith Jackson's incredible map that ultimately
leads to the roots of self. Moving from weakness to strength, throughcomfort
and loss, we travel with Jeremy as he seeks his place I the fabrics
of a family. And, when the regrets and redemptions of growing up
at last come to together for him, we feel the power and the pain
for acknowledging the truth--and of discerning which pieces of our
own family puzzles belong to us.
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