Longlisted for the 2001 Women's Prize for Fiction
Growing up amidst the power politics of 1970s America, Birdie and her older sister Cole are so close they speak their own language. Daughters of a white activist mother and a black academic father, Birdie appears white, Cole black, their relationship a refuge from the rest of their lives. Yet when their parents separate, Birdie and Cole are thrown worlds apart. But Birdie’s desperate need to reclaim her family forces her back on to the road, where her search for her sister becomes, inevitably, a search for her self.
