She first appears as a bleak woman who torments Neet with a cruel religiosity, but her backstory of forced prostitution reveals more about her her final sacrifice redeems her.
) is remarkable for the rich development of all its characters, notably Neet's mother, Alberta. McKinney-Whetstone's fourth novel (after 1999's Blues Dancing Joe loves his wife, Louise, but giving up the sax soon after they married turned out to be a bigger sacrifice than he realized, and getting straight with himself is a moral, sexual, musical adventure. Don't dirty it up with a bunch of guilt that you choosing to feel." Dealing with his own sadness and guilt is harder. Shay's father, Joe, offers tender, paternal wisdom: "Be sad 'cause your best friend is going through a trauma right now, that's a clean, honest sadness. It's the summer of 1969 on Cecil Street in West Philadelphia, and "even though the block had long ago made the transition from white to colored to Negro to Black is Beautiful, the city still provided street cleaning twice a week in the summer when the children took to the outside and there was the familiar smack, smack of the double-Dutch rope." Neet and Shay, 17-year-old neighbors, are as close as that double rope, and when Neet's illegal abortion goes terribly wrong, Shay is distraught-especially since the procedure had been her idea. In Tempest Rising, McKinney-Whetstone richly evokes the early 1960s in west Philadelphia in this story of loss and healing, redemption, and love.Wistful, melodious, contemplative, McKinney-Whetstone's prose feels inspired by the tenor sax central to this story. As Ramona struggles with Mae's abuse and her own hatred for the foster children, she also tries to keep at bay a powerful attraction she has for her boyfriend's father. Though Mae lavishes affection onto her foster children, she is abusive to her own child, Ramona, a twenty-something stunning beauty. The girls are wrenched from their mother and dumped into foster care in a working-class neighborhood in the home of Mae, a politically connected card shark.
When their father disappears suddenly, he is presumed dead, sending their mother spiraling into an apparent breakdown. But their lives quickly unravel as their father's lucrative catering business collapses.
Set in west Philadelphia in the early sixties, Tempest Rising tells the story of three sisters, Bliss, Victoria, and Shern, budding adolescents raised in a world of financial privilege among the upper-black-class. Class, race, and sexuality converge in this page-turning story of desire, jealousy, and survival.
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