African Americans and the Arts - Fiction for Adults
The national theme for Black History Month 2024 is African Americans & the Arts. Here are some recent fiction titles for adults that celebrate Black artists across time, genre, and form. (Created January 2024)
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Greenland
A Black, gay British writer, Kip Starling is living in Brooklyn with his white American husband, Ben, when he learns that his novel about the secret love affair between famed author E.M. Forster and Black Egyptian tram conductor Mohammed el Adl may have a chance of being published—if only he can rewrite it in six weeks. (Library Journal)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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On the Rooftop
The talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore, The Salvations--sisters Ruth, Esther and Chloe--find their personal ambitions on a collision course with those of their mother, whose dreams of musical stardom for them forces her to confront the parts of her life that threaten to splinter.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Symphony of Secrets
When he is asked to authenticate a newly discovered piece from famed 20th-century composer Frederick Delaney, Bern Hendricks uncovers clues that indicate Delaney may have had help composing his most successful work, which makes him a target of a powerful organization who will stop at nothing to keep their secret hidden.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Sing Her Name
Beautiful and brilliantly talented Celia DeMille is a nineteenth-century concert artist who has garnered fame, sung all over the world, and amassed a fortune. But prejudice bars her from achieving her place in history as one of the world’s greatest singers, and she dies in poverty and obscurity. Eden’s estranged Great Aunt Julia summons her back to New Orleans for a brief visit, and the older woman gives Eden something that alters the course of her life: a box she found in the midst of flooded rubble containing a hundred-year-old scrapbook and a mysterious and valuable gold pendant necklace belonging to one of the greatest singers in history—Celia DeMille.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both
After a decade of estrangement, Khaki Oliver receives a letter from her former best friend. Fiona's throwing a party for her newly adopted daughter and wants Khaki to join the celebration. Khaki is equal parts terrified and tempted to reconnect. Their platonic love was confusing, all-consuming, and encouraged their worst impulses. While stalling her RSVP, Khaki starts crafting the perfect mixtape-revisiting memories of formative shows, failed romances, and the ups and downs of desire and denial-while weighing the risks and rewards of saying yes to Fiona again.
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
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Memphis
Told over the course of 70 years, this spellbinding debut novel traces three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter, who, channeling her rage into art, discovers with the power of her paint brush, she can change her family’s legacy.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Late Americans
In Iowa City, there are dancers who frequent the poet bar, poets dismissed early from seminar, art students whose day jobs label them outsiders, and those who will trade art for the security of med school or banking. (Booklist)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm
When he discovers free-spirited drummer Maggie, the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, is pregnant by him, 40-year-old trumpet player and old-school ladies' man who refuses to be tied down, Circus Palmer flees, setting off a chain of interlocking revelations from the various women in his life.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Family Meal
Haunted by the ghost of Kai, the love of his life, Cam returns to his hometown of Houston where he reconnects with his former best friend, TJ, and his family's bakery and wonders if they can find a way back to being okay again.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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