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A Novel
by Toya Wolfe
For fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Brit Bennett, a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.
Even when we lose it all, we find the strength to rebuild.
Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes. It's the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence. But when Fe Fe welcomes a mysterious new friend, Tonya, into their fold, the dynamics shift, upending the lives of all four girls.
As their beloved neighborhood falls down around them, so too do their friendships and the structures of the four girls' families. Fe Fe must make the painful decision of whom she can trust and whom she must let go. Decades later, as she remembers that fateful summer—just before her home was demolished, her life uprooted, and community forever changed—Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left.
Profound, reverent, and uplifting, Last Summer on State Street explores the risk of connection against the backdrop of racist institutions, the restorative power of knowing and claiming one's own past, and those defining relationships which form the heartbeat of our lives. Interweaving moments of reckoning and sustaining grace, debut author Toya Wolfe has crafted an era-defining story of finding a home — both in one's history and in one's self.
"Wolfe debuts with the heartbreaking story of a young girl and her family during a summer of destruction and tragedy...Wolfe's arresting and atmospheric narrative comes fully realized. This is a gut punch." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"First-time novelist Wolfe writes with lacerating precision and authenticity…In a fictional counterpart to Dawn Turner's memoir, Three Girls from Bronzeville, Wolfe's deeply compelling characters, sharply wrought settings, and tightly choreographed plot create a concentrated, significant, and unforgettable tale of family, home, racism, trauma, compassion, and transcendence." - Booklist (starred review)
"Toya Wolfe is a storyteller of the highest order—a wise and compassionate chronicler of girlhood, of Chicago, and of the things that make us human. Last Summer on State Street is a stunning debut." - Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers
"Last Summer on State Street is a triumph, a beautiful ode to the humanity, complexity, and compassion of people in a community too often defined by pathologies. You will root for the brave and surefooted Felicia, Precious, Stacia, and Tonya, as well as their families—all striving amid the rubble. What a lovely debut told with warmth, grace, and a piercing affection." - Dawn Turner, author of Three Girls from Bronzeville
"Last Summer on State Street is a love letter to girlhood, the tenuous bonds of friendship, and the places we call home. As a daughter of Chicago's South Side, this novel took me inside a community I just passed by, but didn't truly see. Wolfe dazzles in this intimate portrait of race, grief, and the times in our lives that shape who we become." - Nancy Johnson, author of The Kindest Lie
This information about Last Summer on State Street was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Toya Wolfe grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago's South Side. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Her writing has appeared in African Voices, Chicago Journal, Chicago Reader, Hair Trigger 27, and WarpLand. She is the recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston-Bessie Head Fiction Award, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Short Story Competition, and the Betty Shifflet/John Schultz Short Story Award. She currently resides in Chicago. Last Summer on State Street is her debut novel.
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