Halsey Street

Penelope Graves is in Pittsburgh, trying to establish herself as an artist. She is also trying to establish herself as, well, herself—reconciling herself to her heritage. Her father is African American, and her mother is Dominican. When they split up, her father stayed in Brooklyn to run his record store and her mother returned to her own mother's house in the Dominican Republic. Penny returns to the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant to look after her ailing father. Penny's mother, Mirelle, writes to Penny asking for reconciliation, and Penny's loyalty is torn three ways: to her mother, to her father, and to herself. It takes the friendship and (eventually) love of John, a local bartender, to provide Penny with the anchor that she needs. Bahni Turpin's narration is strong and clear, though it is annoying that she continually pronounces "RISD" [Rhode Island School of Design] as the letters "R-I-S-D" rather than the acronym "Rizdee," which is how any former student would refer to it.