Home and Away

(Hardback, Large Print Edition)

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Spanning more than eighty years, from Memphis in the 1930s and 1940s to present-day Chicago, this sweeping novel draws on the turbulent history of the Negro Baseball Leagues, as the great-granddaughter of a former player sets out to tell her familys storyand redefine her own.

Harper Fleming is done with being passed over. As a journalist for a Chicago newspaper, shes been refused a shot at the sportswriter position she longs for. And her on again/off again relationship is going nowhere. Leaving both behind, she heads to Nashville, Tennessee, where she plans to interview her widowed grandfather, Bernard Fleming, for a book about his father Kelton Flemings time in the Negro Baseball Leagues.

When Bernard reveals health issues within days of her arrival, Harper assumes responsibility for taking care of him. And when she mentions his father playing baseball in the Negro Leagues, Bernard gives her a trove of letters, journals, and clippings encompassing Keltons career. But some stories are too personal to print without dishonoring the memory of her great-grandmother. Instead, with Bernards approval, Harper begins weaving them into a novel, telling her great-grandfathers story through the eyes of the fictional Moses Gillian.

Chapters flow effortlessly as Harper breathes life into each memory. Particularly intense are Keltons recollections of the Green Book, an annual guidebook that helped African Americans navigate the segregated South. Negro League teams relied on it as they traveled between games, hurrying out of unwelcoming towns before sundown to avoid the Klan.

As Harper delves into Keltons past, a piece of her own resurfaces in the form of Cheney, the childhood friend of her brothers. And as Harper honors her great-grandfathers life, she finds the inspiration to take her own in a bold new direction . . .