Aria is no stranger to tragedy. Fifteen years ago, a family outing took the lives of her father and baby sister, leaving remaining members of this fractured family struggling with their own guilt—real and imagined. At twenty-five, Aria believes she can reinvent herself through her planned marriage with all its promise of a family of her own. Her infertility changes her life as swiftly and irrevocably as the urban landscape around her. With prose that is both eloquent and unflinching, Jones charts the emotional journey of her characters as they explore the painful territory of truth and the healing landscape of forgiveness.
Tayari Jones is the author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage. She holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa, and she serves on the MFA faculty at Rutgers.
Michele Blackmon has spent more than twenty-five years performing, directing, and teaching theater. As an actor, singer, and dancer she has performed in numerous stage productions in Seattle, Portland, Aspen, and at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She has appeared in television commercials and corporate video projects, radio and voice-over projects, and she has performed in the Soviet Union as part of a cultural arts exchange.