What has brought best-selling lesbian novelist Virge Young to this day—to an intensive care unit where she hovers between life and death from a gunshot wound?
The road begins in 1969. Virge is thirteen. Dominant in her world are her inflexible, dogmatic father, her rebellious brother, and a mother who tries her best to run interference among all of them. Ricki Ann is Virge’s best friend—more than her best friend. Complicating matters between them are a profoundly conflicted young man named Ronnie Lane; Virge’s secret African-American friend Mel; and a fire and brimstone preacher named Pastor Bob. Also impacting young Virge’s life are holocaust survivor Mrs. Rosenbaum, notorious Great Aunt Belle, a girl named Leigh Ann—and other memorable figures you’ll come to know along Virge’s road to identity and self-affirmation, especially a woman named Ruth.
Backslide
is about love and forgiveness and the capacity for growth and acceptance;
is about courage in the face of relentless opposition.
is above all a great story told with sublime artistry, with tenderness and depth.
is destined to be a classic.