The community voted to read “The Turner House” by Angela Flournoy for this year’s One Read event. This novel was a New York Times notable book of the year and won the 2016 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. The community is given the summer to read the book in preparation for related programming, including an author talk, in September.  

“I found this book to be a delightful read. It’s well written and it immediately draws you in so that you feel like you’re part of the Turner family. Even though this is a work of fiction, it offers insights into many family and social issues,” said One Read co-chair Lauren Williams.

The book centers around a house on Detroit’s Yarrow Street and the the colorful and complicated Turners who have called it home for more than 50 years. The family matriarch’s failing health, the declining neighborhood and an underwater mortgage force a family meeting to decide the house’s fate. Cha Cha, the oldest son and unofficial head of the Turner clan, wrangles with his famly’s past and the varied demands of his 12 siblings in this entertaining and vividly drawn family saga.

“The Turner House” was a New York Times notable book of the year and a finalist for the National Book Award, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and an NAACP Image Award. Flournoy’s fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, and she has written for The New York Times, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times and elsewhere.

~ Find out more in today’s Journal ~