"First there is a battlefield, a pressure-cooker, a time-bomb: the destructive potential that exists in racial bigotry, in color prejudice and in the tensions and sensitivities which such attitudes encourage. Woven into this pattern of violence, there is a theme that is gentle, wistful and poetic: this is Baldwin's apologia for homosexual love."

"Taylia Chatterjee has never known love, and certainly has never felt it for herself. Growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with her older sister Alyssa, their parents were both overbearing and emotionally distant, and despite idyllic summers in the Catskills, and gatherings with glamorous family friends, there is a sadness that emanates from the Chatterjee residence, a deep well of sorrow stemming from the racism of American society. After...