Getting Our Breath Back Author:Shawne Johnson In Shawne Johnson's debut novel, Getting Our Breath Back, Violet, Lilly, and Rose know how it feels to be black women trying to find their place in the world, even if those places are very different. Violet's belief in the myth of the Southern belle fails her when she discovers that her genteel charms are not going to bring back her phila... more »ndering husband; Lilly is caught in the aftermath of the sixties, shutting out the pain of her past with drugs; and Rose, outwardly independent and grounded in political movements, carries a secret heartache that resonates in the life of her daughter who longs for the father she never knew.
Careening through the chaos and optimism of the sixties through the disillusionment and disappointments of the seventies, Getting Our Breath Back is an earthy and atmospheric story of emotional turmoil and self-reinvention.« less