The Turner House

2017 Longlist

For over fifty years the Turners have lived on Yarrow Street. Their house has seen thirteen children get grown and gone-and some return; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, and the loss of a father. But when their powerful mother falls ill, the Turners are called home to decide their house’s fate and to reckon with how their past haunts-and shapes-their future. The Turner House is a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams, and the ways in which our families bring us home.

(from publisher)

About the Author

Angela Flournoy is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Southern California. Her fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, and she has written for the New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa and Trinity Washington University. She was raised by a mother from Los Angeles and a father from Detroit.

Librarians’ Comments

It’s 2008 in Detroit, and the thirteen adult Turner siblings must decide what to do with their family home, worth only one-tenth of its mortgage. Flournoy shines a light on the workings of a large family, while also creating a nuanced portrait of Detroit from the time the Turner patriarch arrived during the Great Migration to the 2008 recession. A beautifully written family saga.

Angela Flournoy’s critically acclaimed debut novel tells the story of a city, a family and their home as they navigate the changes taking place in the world around them. The reader sees how hard it is to escape the ghosts of the past as we experience the Turners’ struggle to cope with problems that are both unique to them and universal to all families.