Good fences
Subtitle: a novel
By: Erika Ellis.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 216
Subjects: African American families -- Fiction; African Americans -- Fiction; Race relations -- Fiction; Upper class -- Fiction; Greenwich (Conn.) -- Fiction
Genres: Fiction.
Description: Mabel Turner, born and raised in the small and all-black town of Lovejoy, Illinois, meets and marries Tom Spader, a driven man, who shares her dreams of the good life. Together they flee Lovejoy, Tom becomes a successful attorney at a prestigious law firm, and eventually they move to Greenwich, Connecticut. At first, life in the elite suburb is like paradise - they seem to have finally knocked down the fences between themselves and the white American dream.

But soon they discover that some of the highest fences are the ones they cannot see. The kids act up and out, and Mabel feels she has to hide who she really is, secreting Jet magazine under her fancy new sofa cushions and serving expensive gourmet cookies to the other PTA mothers. In the novel's startling climax, these problems are suddenly overshadowed by the very odd behavior of Mabel's neighbors, and of Tom, too.