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The Turner House
by Angela Flournoy
Pleasant book is an autobiography of a family and a city (10/17/2015)
The author did a fantastic job of describing the dynamics in large families (there are 8 children in mine), and the family and old-time, southern superstitions that take on life and get passed down from generation to generation. Cha Cha isn't the only sibling that saw the "haint" when he was young, and he mentioned elderly relatives that knew what to do to get rid of "haints". His dad didn't say they weren't real, just that they weren't in Detroit where he moved to give his family a better life. The author also does a fantastic job of describing the once thriving City of Detroit where the Turner children were raised, and telling us the factors that led to it's destruction: Black flight, crack, gun violence, and real estate fraud - burning property for profit, squatters, and fraudulent short sales which led to the bottoming out of property values. My only criticism is the over use of flashing forward and backwards. I listened to the audio version, which doesn't make it easy to keep up with this kind of storyline. I had to listen a few times to finally get the correct timeline of events. But overall, The Turner House is an very enjoyable read, especially for a Detroit native.
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