What’s Mine and Yours

When a county initiative in the Piedmont of North Carolina forces the students at a mostly black public school on the east side to move across town to a nearly all-white high school on the west,the community rises in outrage. For two studentsquiet and aloof Gee and headstrong Noellethese divisions will extend far beyond their schooling. As their paths collide and overlap over the course of thirty yearstheir two seemingly disconnected families begin to form deeply knottedmessy ties that shape the trajectory of their lives. On one side of the school integration debate is JadeGee’s steelysingleblack mothergrieving for her murdered partnerand determined for her son to have the best chance at a better life. On the otheris Noelle’s enterprising motherLacey Maywho refuses to see her half-Latina daughters as anything but white. The choices these mothers make will resound for years to come. And twenty years laterwhen Lacey’s daughters return home to visit her in hospitalthey’re forced to confront the ways their parents’ decisions continue to affect the life they live and the people they love. WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS is a sweepingrich tapestry of familial bond and identityand a sharppoignant look at the ways race affects even the closest of relationships. This is not just one love storybut many: It’s the all-consuming volatile passion of young lovers and the quieter comfort of steady companionship; it’s the often tenuous but unbreakable bond between siblings; and it’s the unconditional love that runs between parent and child and encompasses adorationcontempt and forgiveness. With gorgeous proseNaima Coster explores the unique organism that is every family: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.