RaveThe Washington PostOn its surface Simmons’s memoir reads like a coming-of-age tale of remarkable success despite the author’s humble beginnings, a victory lap for a woman who’s achieved far more, academically and professionally, than many women of her generation. But the venerated college administrator upends and elevates that predictable theme with frequent, self-assessing asides in which she wonders if, in her quest to escape her surroundings, she judged them too harshly ... In writing a memoir with such an acute focus on the life she left behind, Simmons provides an instructive guide for those who straddle this line between a difficult past and an exultant present. Though the final third of the memoir seems rushed as she breezes through major life events like graduations, marriage, children and divorce, Simmons has succeeded in writing a measured and thoughtful account of her Before and After.
Angela Flournoy
RaveThe Washington PostThe Turner House is an elegant and assured debut that takes a refreshing approach to discussing mental health issues within a black family that’s resistant to direct conversation about them. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the haint that drew us into the narrative is 'real' to anyone but Cha-Cha. His belief in it is enough for readers to invest in his exorcism of it and of all the other hounds of history that haunt him.
