cover image FLOATING

FLOATING

Nicole Bailey-Williams, Nicole Bailey Williams, . . Broadway/Harlem Moon, $10.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-7679-1564-9

A young biracial woman seeks to unlock the secrets of her past in Bailey-Williams's ambitious but overwrought second novel (after A Little Piece of Sky ). Philadelphia native Shanna Johnson is suspended between the competing worlds of her mother Elizabeth's wealthy Main Line family and the tough urban streets on which her father, James, was raised. Elizabeth holds their fragile family together, until she abruptly abandons them one day, leaving nine-year-old Shanna in James's emotionally distant care. Ten years later, Shanna is a student at Temple University, earning extra money as a photographer. One afternoon she notices handsome fellow student Lionel Jackson, and the two begin a relationship, despite Lionel's condescending attitude ("You're the kind of woman who belongs on the arm of a politician.... You'd just stand there by his side looking pretty"). Shanna's doubts about Lionel are confirmed when she learns he has abandoned his own child, and she responds by seducing his roommate, then exploiting his tendency to drink too much. When she is badly injured in a car accident, the authorities notify Elizabeth, who provides physical and emotional healing and jump-starts Shanna's career with an introduction to an influential publisher. As the pieces of Shanna's past fall into place, she learns that her parents' marriage was not the first meeting of the two families—a violent episode has haunted them for generations. Bailey-Williams paints a knowing picture of the City of Brotherly Love, but breathy prose ("Hope swirled in my head the next day when I awoke"), self-conscious shifts into poetry and unconvincing dramatics muddy this tale of a Philly girl's search for her place in the world. Agent, Peter Miller. (Apr. 13)