These same long bones /

Parker's novel re-creates an almost-forgotten world: the strictly segregated but largely self-sufficient African American community in a southern city in the years just after World War II. The Hay-Ti section of Durham, North Carolina, relies on banker and builder Sirus MacDougald for his leadership, strength, and wisdom. But when Downtown Durham offers to invest in a Hay-Ti housing development and the community splits along lines of profit and loss, MacDougald--overwhelmed with grief at the death of his young daughter Mattie, and unable to connect with his devastated wife, Aileen, in their shared pain--is unable to bring his neighbors together. In her first novel, Parker, who was a Wall Street lawyer and marketing manager before she decided to concentrate on writing, constructs a complex microcosm populated by vivid and believable characters. ~--Mary Carroll

This story of a middle-class black community in North Carolina, and the local banker who struggles to hold it together, is the author's first novel. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This first novel is set in Durham, North Carolina, on the eve of integration. Sirus McDougald is a family man, bank president, and pillar of a small, middle-class black community. When he loses his beloved daughter, he is forced to come to terms with several uncomfortable aspects of his life: the deterioration of his marriage, the uneasy coexistence of the black and white communities in Durham, and changes in several longtime friendships. Besieged by grief and self-doubt, Sirus must somehow find the strength to protect his close-knit community from opportunistic white investors. In this hauntingly beautiful portrayal of love and loss, Parker brings to life a community in all its vivid multiplicity of detail. The tale is peopled by exquisitely drawn characters. Highly recommended.-- Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Parker has two stories to tell in her first novel. One involves a domestic tragedy, the other a test of wills between white and black communities in a segregated Southern city. Unfortunately, the latter, far more interesting story is crowded out by the former. The time is 1947. Sirus McDougald, 35-year-old son of a poor black tobacco farmer, is now comfortably ensconced in Durham, North Carolina's middle class; a builder, a banker, and leader of its vibrant business community. Sirus has mingled with white people as an equal, since he can pass for white; he is neither intimidated nor impressed by them, and when some white Durham businessmen propose a housing venture, Sirus rejects it, because it smells rotten. On the home front, Sirus' marriage to the anxiety-ridden Aileen, his temperamental opposite, is on the rocks, but he has found solace in his young daughter, Mattie, his pride and joy. When the novel opens Mattie has just died in an accidental fall, plunging both parents into a deep gloom that will not lift until the story's end a year later. The tone of hushed reverence for the dear departed quickly becomes suffocating, and Parker's half- hearted attempts to tie the tragedy to Sirus' business dealings (Was a white man somehow involved? Was it divine punishment for Sirus' overreaching?) don't help. Somewhere between the wake and the funeral and the flashbacks the story dies, and Sirus' eventual recovery (inspired by a vision of Mattie) and further resistance of the white power structure comes too late to revive it. Rich material ruined by cloying treatment.