Simple Distance

A California lawyer is reunited with her Caribbean mother, and must cope with a crisis, in a novel about identity and family.   Jean has lived in the United States—and avoided her Caribbean homeland—for years. But as she prepares to work on a lesbian couple’s child custody case, in the hopes of advancing her law career, she is suddenly pulled in another direction.   Her uncle, a prominent man back on the island, has died, and Jean’s mother, who nursed him through his long illness, demands her daughter’s attention. She wants to come visit her in Oakland.   As Jean struggles through memories of both childhood and adulthood, she must come to terms with her past, her future, her true identity—and her relationship with a woman who has made her life difficult, but who may now desperately need her help.