num_pages: 352
description: A gripping and powerful novel of healing redemption and love following a queer Black woman who works to stay clean pull her life together and heal after being released from prison. Ranita Atwater is getting short. She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. With three years of sobriety she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children. My name is Ranita and Im an addict she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? As she claims the story housed within her pomegranate-like heart she is determined to confront the weight of the past and discover what might lie beyond mere survival. Ranita is regaining her freedom but shes leaving behind her lover Maxine who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce smart and sometimes funny voice Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman even as she draws on family memory faith and love in order to choose life. Perfect or fans of Jesmyn Ward and Yaa Gyasi Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America: a story of loss healing redemption and strength. In lyrical and precise prose Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction and of one womans determination to tell her story.
language: English
title: Pomegranate
publisher: Atria Books