Angela Flournoy - The Turner House

The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone—and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, the loss of a father. 

The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunt—and shape—their family’s future.

The Turner House brings us a colorful, complicated brood full of love and pride, sacrifice and unlikely inheritances. It's a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home.

PRAISE
"It is Flournoy's finely tuned empathy that infuses her characters with a radiant humanity."
-O, the Oprah Magazine

"Encompassing a multitude of themes, including aging and parenthood, this is a compelling read that is funny and moving in equal measure."
-Booklist, starred review

"An expansive and ambitious novel that descends through the generations of one family's history to achieve real poignancy and power."
-T.C. BOYLE, author of Drop City and The Women

"Angela Flournoy’s extraordinary debut novel, The Turner House, is as compelling, unforgettable, and beautifully told a story as I’ve read in ages. The real and the supernatural, the hardships and hard won triumphs of the tightly knit, at times warring Turner clan will pull you close to this family’s generous, dignified heart. While each of the thirteen siblings (and their parents) could carry a book on his or her own, here they remain indelibly linked by the complicated bonds of history and belonging—and by the promises of their heartbreak city, Detroit."
-CRISTINA GARCÍA, author of Dreaming in Cuban and King of Cuba 

"The Turner House is masterful: a novel full of history and lies and the myths that can bring a family together, or tear it apart. There are touches of grace a humor in this generous and humane portrait of a family, and a city, in transition. This is a beautiful, elegant, and living novel, one that you will savor until the last, moving paragraph." 
-DANIEL ALARCÓN, author of At Night We Walk in Circles

"Utterly moving and tough as nails, The Turner House is a love story as immense as the family it describes, and as complicated as the city that made them. A clear-sighted ode to the bonds that make and break us, to resilience across generations, to shared joys and solitary struggles, Flournoy's debut is as fresh and bold as they come. Commanding and unputdownable!"
-AYANA MATHIS, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

"The Turner House is a marvelous novel introducing a family of irresistible characters.  Angela Flournoy is a magician--here is a story that is charming and funny while being whip-smart and profound. Laced through are the hard facts of history and the mysterious workings of the human heart. The magic begins with the extraordinary first chapter and lasts to the very last page. This is a thrilling debut from a writer to watch."
-TAYARI JONES, author of Silver Sparrow and Leaving Atlanta

"Angela Flournoy’s brilliant The Turner House is about no less than the joy and aggravation of being a human being in a large family, in a house, in a city, on this earth.  This book is so beautifully written, so perfectly observed and heard—it’s about aging and parenthood and above all that misunderstood lifelong union, siblinghood—but it’s also pure pleasure to read: funny, heartbreaking, with the sort of characters you’ll miss like family when you finish. The Turner House is an absolutely wonderful novel."
-ELIZABETH MCCRACKEN, author of The Giant's House and Thunderstruck