{"product_id":"the-names-of-all-the-flowers-a-memoir-9781936932856","title":"The Names of All the Flowers: A Memoir","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSet in rapidly gentrifying 1990s Oakland, this memoir--\"poignant, painful, and gorgeous\" (Alicia Garza)--explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief in a family shattered by loss.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMelissa and her older brother Junior grow up running around the disparate neighborhoods of 1990s Oakland, two of six children to a white Quaker father and a black Southern mother. But as Junior approaches adolescence, a bullying incident and later a violent attack in school leave him searching for power and a sense of self in all the wrong places; he develops a hard front and falls into drug dealing. Right before Junior's twentieth birthday, the family is torn apart when he is murdered as a result of gun violence.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Names of All the Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e connects one tragic death to a collective grief for all black people who die too young. A lyrical recounting of a life lost, Melissa Valentine's debut memoir is an intimate portrait of a family fractured by the school-to-prison pipeline and an enduring love letter to an adored older brother. It is a call for justice amid endless cycles of violence, grief, and trauma, declaring: \"We are all witness and therefore no one is spared from this loss.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Valentine's heartfelt memoir of losing her brother expresses the grief of being a black woman left behind when a black man dies to gun violence, and the specific condition of growing up mixed race in Oakland. As such, it's a portrait of a place, a person who died too young, the systems that led to that death, and the keen insights of the author herself. Lyrical and smart, with appropriate undercurrents of rage.\" --Emily Raboteau, author of \u003cem\u003eSearching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Feminist Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/14\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781936932856\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 296\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.75lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.00h x 5.50w x 0.70d","brand":"Melissa Valentine","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":36671197446300,"sku":"9781936932856","price":15.26,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_79fcc7fa-bbf4-4ee2-a511-b4303e647c01.jpg?v=1603924808","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-names-of-all-the-flowers-a-memoir-9781936932856","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}