Charis and Auburn Avenue Research Library welcome Denene Millner in conversation with Tayari Jones for a celebration of One Blood: A Novel. Homegoing meets The Mothers where three women are tied together by blood, love, and family secrets in this searing novel by New York Times bestseller Denene Millner.
This event takes place at the Auburn Avenue Research Library (101 Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303) and is free and open to the public. No ticket or reservation is required to attend. Books will be available for purchase from Charis Books and More. Masks are strongly encouraged. The event will be simulcast on the Auburn Ave Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AuburnAvenueResearchLibrary/) for community members who do not wish to attend live.
Raised by her beloved grandmother in tension-filled, post-segregation Virginia, Grace is barely a teenager when she loses her Maw Maw. Shellshocked, she is shipped up North to live with her formidably ambitious Aunt Hattie—a woman who firmly left behind her “undesirable” Southern roots in pursuit of upward mobility. Thrust into the world of the Black and socially ambitious, Grace finds herself trapped in a society of stifling respectability, fancy teas, and coveted debutante balls. Feeling like a fish out of water, Grace’s only place of sweet comfort is with the smart, handsome son of one of the society’s grand dames. However, when Dale gets caught up in a racial police killing and Grace ends up pregnant, she is quickly hidden away and he is promptly shipped off to college. Then in the ultimate act of betrayal, Grace is deceived by Hattie, and her brand new baby girl is given up for adoption.
Beautiful, intelligent and fierce, Delores a.k.a. Lolo has never had it easy. Her life has been riddled with pain and loss. Once she makes it up north, she puts aside her dream of being a model to do what she has to do to survive as a woman with little money and no mooring: get married and have a family of her own. And she will tell lies and keep secrets to obtain it. Then Lolo does have it all: a doting husband, a beautiful son and daughter, and a lovely home. When secrets start to spill out and she and her family slowly begin to unravel, Lolo is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her dream intact and those she loves together.
When Lolo’s headstrong daughter, Rae discovers that she is adopted, it is just one secret among others that her family is keeping. Not out of a desire to deceive, but out of a determination to survive and protect. When Rae finds out that she is about to become a mother herself, she knows that there is an important reckoning that must be faced about herself and her two mothers.
Potent, poetic, powerful, told with deep love, and spanning from the Great Migration to the civil unrest of the 1960s to the quest for women’s equality in early 2000s, Denene Millner’s beautifully wrought novel explores three women’s intimate struggle with generational trauma and healing.
DENENE MILLLNER is a six-time New York Times bestselling author, Emmy Award–nominated TV show host and award-winning journalist who has written thirty-one books, among them Taraji P. Henson’s Around the Way Girl and the picture book Early Sunday Morning. Millner is also the editorial director of Denene Millner Books, an award-winning imprint that has published two Caldecott Honor books, a Newbery Honor Book, the Kirkus Prize for Children’s Literature and a Southern Book Award. A MacDowell Fellow, Millner has written essays for the New York Times, Glamour and NPR, which hosted her critically-acclaimed podcast, “Speakeasy with Denene.” Millner is a graduate of Hofstra University. She lives in Atlanta with her two daughters and their goldendoodle, Franklin.
New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently An American Marriage. Published in 2018, An American Marriage is an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list as well as his year-end roundup. The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries. Jones, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her third novel, Silver Sparrow, was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.
A People Magazine Pick.
“In delicious, decadent prose, Denene Millner does what few authors can–compose a sprawling multigenerational tale that is necessary American reading. One Blood sings the song of the South in a voice that is heartbreaking, hopeful, and resilient. A masterpiece.”
–Tara M. Stringfellow, National Bestselling author of Memphis
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK
A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION
WINNER OF THE 2019 NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDI
From the author of the Oprah Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is an emotionally powerful novel that "succeeds mightily...truly a wonderful story" (Boston Globe).
From the New York Times Bestselling Author of An American Marriage
“A love story . . . Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy . . . Jones’s skill for wry understatement never wavers.”
—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Silver Sparrow will break your heart before you even know it.
From the author of the Oprah's Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is a beautifully evocative novel that proves why Tayari Jones is "one of the most important voices of her generation" (Essence).