Porter Stockman, a determined white reporter, is covering the riots in the streets of South Central Los Angeles for the Philadelphia Record on the day that four Los Angeles police officers are acquitted of assaulting Rodney King. When Lenora Page, a black woman, risks her own safety to come to his aid and then disappears into the chaos, Porter fears he'll never see her again. But weeks later their paths intersect once more when Lenora -- a prominent reporter for the Baltimore Sun -- accepts a job offer from his newspaper.
During the course of the next year, Porter fights to win the trust and love of the suspicious and deeply conflicted Lenora. As they become a couple, they are forced to reexamine their assumptions about race . . . as well as their own insecurities, assumptions, and deeply hidden -- but nevertheless powerful -- fears about their union.
Probing divided allegiances, split loyalties, and the pain of confronting one's own prejudice, this poignant novel presents an impassioned and bittersweet look at interracial love in America today.

Meeting of the Waters: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

McLarin, Kim

Literary

Harper-perennial

In her previous books, celebrated author Kim McLarin skillfully examined issues of race and love. Jump at the Sun is her stunning third novel in which she addresses the same complicated subjects, as well as gender, class, and motherhood.
Grace Jefferson is an educated and accomplished modern woman, a child of the Civil Rights dream, and she knows it well. But after a series of rattling personal transitions, she finds herself in a new house in a new city and in a new career for which she feels dangerously unsuited: a stay-at-home mom. Caught between the only two models of mothering she has ever known -- a sharecropping grandmother who abandoned her children to save herself and a mother who sacrificed all to save her kids -- Grace struggles to embrace her new role, hoping to find a middle ground. But as the days pass and the pressures mount, Grace begins to catch herself in small acts of abandonment -- speeding up on neighborhood walks, closing doors with the children on one side and her on the other -- that she fears may foretell a future she is powerless to prevent. Or perhaps it's a future she secretly seeks. 
Jump at the Sun is a novel about an isolating suburban life and the continuing legacy of slavery, about generational change and the price of living the dream for which our parents fought. Primarily it is a novel about motherhood, and not a sentimental one. As Grace struggles not to damage her children with her own fears and complications, her thoughts stray far from the greeting-card picture often expected of mothers in society today. In her bold and fearless voice McLarin explores both the highs and the lows of being a mother and how breaking the cycle of suffocation and regret is infuriatingly difficult, and absolutely necessary.

Jump at the Sun: A Novel

United States

William Morrow

After a series of stressful personal transitions, Grace Jefferson finds herself in a new house in a new city and in a new career for which she feels dangerously unsuited: a stay-at-home mom. An educated and accomplished modern woman, a child of the Civil Rights dream, she is caught between the only two models of mothering she has ever known—a sharecropping grandmother who abandoned her children to save herself and a mother who sacrificed all to save her kids—as she struggles to find a middle ground. But as the days pass and the pressures mount, Grace begins to catch herself in small acts of abandonment that she fears may foretell a future she is powerless to prevent . . . or perhaps secretly seeks. Jump at the Sun is a novel about an isolating suburban life and the continuing legacy of slavery, about generational change and the price of living the dream for which our parents fought. In her bold and fearless voice, Kim McLarin explores both the highs and lows of being a mother, and how breaking the cycle of suffocation and regret, while infuriatingly difficult, is absolutely necessary.

The daughter of an ambitious mother and the product of an exclusive New England prep school, African-American journalist Hope Robinson is sick of proving herself over and over to white professionals...tired of the automatic distrust she gets from the black community...and has had it up to here with black -- and white -- men who don't think she's good enough. It will take both a crisis and a journey back into the worlds Hope grew up in before she can confront the roots of her rage -- and finally free herself to be who she wants to be....

Taming It Down

Grand Central Publishing

During the Rodney King riots in L.A., reporter Porter Stockman is nearly beaten to death by rioters. His savior: Lee Page, also a reporter, who soon lands a job at the same Philadelphia newspaper where Porter works. Thus begins a tumultuous interracial relationship, with both parties struggling to decide what race means and why."Biracial marriage and radical bigotry are explored with potent insight and literary skill.... McLarin pulls no punches." - Publishers Weekly"A surprisingly complex love story laced with the kind of breezy humor we expect from writers like Bebe Moore Campbell and Terry McMillan." - Library Journal

iUniverse

An angry young black reporter for a Philadelphia newspaper, Hope Robinson, a former scholarship student an an exclusive prep school, struggles to define her life and identity as she finds herself trapped by a complex personal life, career trouble, and self-destructive emotion. A first novel. Tour.

Taming It Down: A Novel

Rescued from the Los Angeles riot that followed verdict in the trial of cops involved in the Rodney King beating, white reporter Porter Stockman falls in love with his savior, Leonora Page, a beautiful black journalist, but their growing relationship forces Porter to confront his own prejudices and feelings about race. By the author of Taming It Down. 30,000 first printing.

Meeting of the Waters

Thorndike Pr

The daughter of Malcolm X describes growing up fatherless after her father's assassination, her mother's determination to protect her children from the barrage of media, her discovery of her father's contributions, and life in the Shabazz household.

Growing Up X

Biographies & Memoirs

Shabazz, Ilyasah

Community & Culture

Womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e. frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, “you acting womanish,” i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior… Acting grown up. Being grown up… ―From Alice Walker’s Definition of a “Womanist” from In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose Born in 1964, the last year of the Boomers or the first year of Generation X, depending upon who's counting, Kim McLarin came of age as part of the first real "Brown vs. Board" generation, and that experience, of America first embracing and then rejecting a real and meaningful beloved racial community, has shaped everything in her life. Searing in its emotional honesty, Womanish is an essay collection that explores what it means to be a black woman in today’s turbulent times. Writing with candor, wit and vulnerability on topics including dating after divorce, depression, parenting older children, the Obama’s, and the often fraught relations between white and black women, McLarin unveils herself at the crossroads of being black, female and middle-aged, and, ultimately, American. Powerful and timely, Womanishdraws upon a lifetime of experiences to paint a portrait of a black woman trying to come to terms with the world around her, and of a society trying to come to terms with black women.

Womanish: A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Love and Life

Parenting & Relationships

Ig Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McLarin, Kim. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McLarin, Kim

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McLarin, Kim. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Meeting of the Waters: A Novel

Jump at the Sun: A Novel

Jump at the Sun: A Novel

Taming It Down

Meeting of the Waters: A Novel

Taming It Down: A Novel

Meeting of the Waters: A Novel

Meeting of the Waters

Growing Up X

Womanish: A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Love and Life