Okra's Child

Book excerpt: Suffering a fall on the Island of Long Island Bahamas, the heroine forces herself to answer the question, What is my purpose in life? Fearing death, she questions wheatear God wants her or not. Guiding her on this journey are the likes of Alice in Wonderland , movie stars, and dead relatives. They force her into accepting her own mortality, even as she attends her own funeral. The story is told from her hospital bed by way of flashbacks. Among her flashbacks are visits to the Joe McCarthy and Apartheid era of the 1940-50 s. There is humor, beginning with Bobby Darin s Splish-Splash recording, to assisting the airline pilot in landing the plane, and tears as she relives her kidnapping and other childhood molestations. She discovers her own mechanisms of surviving.