2024 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction (finalist)
“A remarkable feat of literary conjuration.” —Jennifer Haigh, nationally bestselling author of Mercy Street
The acclaimed author of The Serpent’s Gift returns with this gripping and powerful novel of healing, redemption, and love, following a queer Black woman who works to stay clean, pull her life together, and heal after being released from prison.
Ranita Atwater is “getting short.”
She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. With three years of sobriety, she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children.
My name is Ranita, and I’m an addict, she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? As she claims the story housed within her pomegranate-like heart, she is determined to confront the weight of the past and discover what might lie beyond mere survival.
Ranita is regaining her freedom, but she’s leaving behind her lover Maxine, who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down, while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce, smart, and sometimes funny voice, Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman, even as she draws on family, memory, faith, and love in order to choose life.
Perfect for fans of Jesmyn Ward and Yaa Gyasi, Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America: a story of loss, healing, redemption, and strength. In lyrical and precise prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction, and of one woman’s determination to tell her story.
Genre: Literary Fiction
The acclaimed author of The Serpent’s Gift returns with this gripping and powerful novel of healing, redemption, and love, following a queer Black woman who works to stay clean, pull her life together, and heal after being released from prison.
Ranita Atwater is “getting short.”
She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. With three years of sobriety, she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children.
My name is Ranita, and I’m an addict, she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? As she claims the story housed within her pomegranate-like heart, she is determined to confront the weight of the past and discover what might lie beyond mere survival.
Ranita is regaining her freedom, but she’s leaving behind her lover Maxine, who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down, while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce, smart, and sometimes funny voice, Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman, even as she draws on family, memory, faith, and love in order to choose life.
Perfect for fans of Jesmyn Ward and Yaa Gyasi, Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America: a story of loss, healing, redemption, and strength. In lyrical and precise prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction, and of one woman’s determination to tell her story.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Helen Elaine Lee is a writer of great humanity, wisdom, delicacy and heart. Pomegranate is a moving portrait of a woman living with her mistakes and determined to do better. Ranita's journey out of addiction and incarceration and early trauma, her daily struggle to live a life as large as her spirit, is a remarkable feat of literary conjuration. This is what novels are for." - Jennifer Haigh
"Helen Elaine Lee is working at the height of her powers. With empathy, insight, and hope, Pomegranate reveals the hidden heartbreak of the women touched by incarceration. Prepare to be challenged and changed." - Tayari Jones
"Pomegranate feels like something new: a humane, closely observed account of a Black woman'a recovering addict, a mother who's lost custody of her children - emerging from prison, working to stay clean, reconnect with her family, and come to terms with her complicated past. This moving and panoramic novel starts off as a character study and evolves into a big-hearted story of redemption." - Tom Perrotta
"Helen Elaine Lee has brought such a deep and beautiful world of people to the page, I found myself already missing them even as I continued to read. In their survival, we find ours and are left grateful, different, better." - Jacqueline Woodson
"Helen Elaine Lee is working at the height of her powers. With empathy, insight, and hope, Pomegranate reveals the hidden heartbreak of the women touched by incarceration. Prepare to be challenged and changed." - Tayari Jones
"Pomegranate feels like something new: a humane, closely observed account of a Black woman'a recovering addict, a mother who's lost custody of her children - emerging from prison, working to stay clean, reconnect with her family, and come to terms with her complicated past. This moving and panoramic novel starts off as a character study and evolves into a big-hearted story of redemption." - Tom Perrotta
"Helen Elaine Lee has brought such a deep and beautiful world of people to the page, I found myself already missing them even as I continued to read. In their survival, we find ours and are left grateful, different, better." - Jacqueline Woodson
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