Writer and editor
Published by Harlem Moon/Doubleday
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"Joins Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina and Kaye Gibbons' Ellen Foster as the great contemporary novels of a young woman's coming of age." -- Anthony Walton, author ofMississippi: An American Journey
"Lots of little girls think their fathers are special, but when your dad's a professional magician who can charm anyone, you can't help falling in love with him. Ditto with this moving novel." -- Glamour
"Chambers's gift for detail both charms and chills." -- Newsweek
"An exquisite first novel." -- Booklist
"Chambers gives us a good glimpse of the inner life of a talented girl making her way in the world." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Wise, funny, heartbreaking and honest. . . " -- Darrin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng
Read an excerpt from Miss Black America
A dazzling fiction debut from the author of Mama's Girl, Miss Black America is the warm and tender story of Angela, a young girl growing up in 1970s Brooklyn. Angela goes to school one ordinary day and returns home to find her glamorous and fiercely independent mother gone. Her magician father, Teddo, left to raise Angela alone, insists on keeping Melanie's disappearance shrouded in mystery. As Angela grows to womanhood and struggles to understand her mother's motivation for escaping the bonds of her family, she wryly observes, "My father was a magician, but my mother was the real Houdini."
A universal story that is both finely tuned and elegant, Miss Black America captures the intricacies, pleasures, contradictions, and complexities at the heart of every family. Spare and finely told, this novel will seep beneath your skin and stay with you long after the last page has been turned.
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