River, Cross My Heart

Oprah's Book Club Pick

Five-year-old Clara Bynum is dead, drowned in the Potomac River in the shadow of a seemingly haunted rock outcropping known locally as the Three Sisters. "River, Cross My Heart" weighs the effects of Clara's absence on the people she has left behind: her parents, Alice and Willie Bynum, torn between the old world of their rural North Carolina home and the new world of the city; the friends and relatives of the Bynum family in their new Georgetown neighborhood; and, most especially, Clara's sister, ten-year-old Johnnie Mae. This highly accomplished first novel resonates with ideas, impassioned lyricism, and poignant historical detail as it captures an essential part of the African American experience in our century.