{"product_id":"names-of-all-the-flowers-a-memoir","title":"Names of All the Flowers: A Memoir","description":"\u003cbody\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eTitle: \u003c\/b\u003eNames of All the Flowers: A Memoir\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor: \u003c\/b\u003eMelissa Valentine\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN: \u003c\/b\u003e9781936932856\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher: \u003c\/b\u003eThe Feminist Press at CUNY\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished: \u003c\/b\u003e2020\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding: \u003c\/b\u003ePaperback\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage: \u003c\/b\u003eEnglish\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEdition: \u003c\/b\u003e2\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Note: \u003c\/b\u003eNew from the publisher\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher Description: \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSet in rapidly gentrifying 1990s Oakland, this memoir--poignant, painful, and gorgeous (Alicia Garza)--explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief in a family shattered by loss.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMelissa and her older brother Junior grow up running around the disparate neighborhoods of 1990s Oakland, two of six children to a white Quaker father and a black Southern mother. But as Junior approaches adolescence, a bullying incident and later a violent attack in school leave him searching for power and a sense of self in all the wrong places; he develops a hard front and falls into drug dealing. Right before Junior's twentieth birthday, the family is torn apart when he is murdered as a result of gun violence.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Names of All the Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e connects one tragic death to a collective grief for all black people who die too young. A lyrical recounting of a life lost, Melissa Valentine's debut memoir is an intimate portrait of a family fractured by the school-to-prison pipeline and an enduring love letter to an adored older brother. It is a call for justice amid endless cycles of violence, grief, and trauma, declaring: \"We are all witness and therefore no one is spared from this loss.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Valentine's heartfelt memoir of losing her brother expresses the grief of being a black woman left behind when a black man dies to gun violence, and the specific condition of growing up mixed race in Oakland. As such, it's a portrait of a place, a person who died too young, the systems that led to that death, and the keen insights of the author herself. Lyrical and smart, with appropriate undercurrents of rage.\" --Emily Raboteau, author of \u003cem\u003eSearching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/body\u003e","brand":"The Feminist Press at CUNY","offers":[{"title":"Names of All the Flowers: A Memoir | Melissa Valentine | Quality | 9781936932856 | New | Memoir 1286560","offer_id":50550618915074,"sku":"1286560","price":31.51,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0609\/3327\/5906\/files\/41ZxiAZezEL.jpg?v=1790470317","url":"https:\/\/boswellsbooks.com\/products\/names-of-all-the-flowers-a-memoir","provider":"Boswell's Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}