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Dark Crossings
Richard Allen, composer, and Keisha Johnson, historian, live
with their two children in Evanston, IL where they teach at
Northwestern University. They are a loving, happy family until
murder devastates this bi-racial family, leaving Keisha and her
teen-aged children traumatized and lost. A DNA kit leads her to her
biological father's Jamaican American family, some living nearby in
Chicago. Keisha's investigation of his death at the hands of police
in West Philadelphia in 1985 introduces her to a little known
horror story that is part of the American past: police
deliberately dropping a bomb on a home that held members of
MOVE, a mostly Black group living a defiantly utopian lifestyle.
Philadelphia police under Frank Rizzo's leadership left the
resulting fire burn, destroying an entire neighborhood of
sixty-some homes.
Based on historical research, this second in the Crossings Series follows Keisha Johnson and her children through their darkest time as they seek to understand and survive unbearable loss. A historical novel of grief, redemption, race, and family in 2019 America.
One reviewer wrote: "This is a gripping story of a family you care about going through a sudden, inexplainable loss. Their sorrow and their efforts to stay afloat are admirable and their times of unwinding, losing themselves in grief and anger and frustration are very real. I loved the characters and especially loved the different perspectives: the mid-teen children trying to help their grieving mother while suppressing their own grief until it explodes, the grandparents and great grandmother and uncle, all trying to help in their own unique ways, and even the homeless woman who "adopts" fifteen-year-old Cora when she runs away. I also appreciated learning about Keisha's birth father and meeting his Jamaican relatives. I loved learning history that was unfamiliar to me through how it affected these characters who I cared about."
