HOME AND AWAY

Eighteen-year-old Tasia struggles with uncertainty around identity and family in Montgomery’s debut novel.

Tasia Lynn Quirk is certain she knows exactly who she is—the daughter of a loving, financially well-off family, a confident and successful black private school senior, a kick-ass, and the only girl on her high school’s football team. The arrival of a mysterious box makes her solid world fly apart when she discovers that her biological father is not the black man who raised her but a white man named Merrick. Reeling from the betrayal and violent shift in her identity, Taze impulsively seeks out Merrick and his family as she tries to navigate the new chaos of her life. Montgomery’s thoughtful craft is driven by immediacy and tension and grounded in emotional authenticity. The depth of 21st-century young adult complexity is effortlessly inscribed in Taze’s character, including the frustrations and exhilaration of football, the complicated intensity of a new romantic relationship with a bisexual boy, the negotiation of the intersecting tensions of racism, colorism, sexism, and classism, and the difficult path to family healing. The juxtaposition of Taze’s exploration of her black biracial identity alongside the unfettered diversity of identity and experiences among the supporting cast goes beyond refreshing all the way to restorative for readers weary of the search for intersectional mirrors.

A love letter to the intricacies of family and multitudinous black girlhood.