Good Hair: A Novel
by By Little, Benilde
Category: Fiction , General

When a Newark girl meets an upper-crust Boston boy, sparks fly, backgrounds clash, and readers enter the rarely observed world of the Black elite -- a.k.a. the "Talented Tenth" -- in this glamourous, poignant, funny debut novel by Benilde Little, the former arts and entertainment editor at Essence.  Alice Andrews is living in Manhattan, working as a reporter in Newark, and spending her free time desperately trying to forget her most recent relationship, with Miles, the smooth-talking investment banker she had mistakenly anointed Mr. Right. Then, on an airplane, she meets handsome Jack Russworm, a third-generation Harvard-educated doctor. With his perfect teeth and good luggage, he shows all the potential for being the real thing.  The new romance seems to be going well, but the issue of their different backgrounds keeps popping up. Clair, Jack's mother, seems frosty to Alice. Jack's ex-girlfriend, Sherry Steptoe, the poster girl for Black American Princess-dom, is a constant reminder of all that Alice is not. Amid the bougie clubbiness it is difficult for Alice to reveal who she really is, while Jack appears oblivious to it all. Or is he?  Benilde Little offers us a delicious, closely observed, eye-opening look at the world of upper-class Black Manhattan in this novel that is alternately humorous and touching, sexy and bold.