A riveting, coming-of-age memoir about three Black girls from the storied Bronzeville section of Chicago that offers a penetrating exploration of race, opportunity, friendship, sisterhood, and the powerful forces at work that allow some to flourish…and others to falter.When her sister was born, fiery and willful from the start, three-year-old Dawn Turner understood that Kim would always be both an ally and adversary. She had a similar feeling when she became friends with pretty Debra Trice in third grade. Dawn was instantly captivated by Debra’s bold and rambunctious spirit, so opposite to her own. The three girls formed an indelible bond as they spent their years growing up together daydreaming about their futures: Dawn, a writer, Debra a doctor, and Kim, a teacher. Then they came to the precipice, a fraught rite of passage for all girls when the dangers and harsh realities of the world burst the innocent bubble of childhood, when the choices they made could—and would—have devastating consequences. There was a razor-thin margin of error—especially for brown girls. With a keen investigative eye and intimate detail, Dawn chronicles the dramatic turns that send their lives careening in very different—and shocking—directions over the decades. The result is a powerful tour de force on the complex interplay of race and opportunity, class and womanhood, and how those forces shape our lives and our capacity for resilience and redemption.

Publication Year: 2021