All-Bright Court

Set in a crumbling housing project near a Buffalo, New York, steel mill, this "novel full of wisdom, grace and poetry" (NEWSDAY) traces two decades in the lives of the project's African-American residents, drawing a "searing . . . heart-tugging" (BOSTON GLOBE) portrait of an era: it begins with a kindled dream in the 1960s and tragically dims over the next twenty years, along with the hopes of black America. Glowing with warmth, ALL-BRIGHT COURT illuminates the dignity, faith, and humor that enable people to endure a world bound by margins of devastating reality.