Flight of the Blackbird

by Faye McDonald Smith

In her remarkable debut novel, Faye McDonald Smith gives us a portrait of American family life in the nineties that is at once startlingly realistic and superbly entertaining. In it we meet the Burkes, an upwardly mobile, attractive, near-perfect family made up of Mel, an accomplished Atlanta executive who is beloved by her friends and family; her husband Builder, a hard working entrepreneur who is also a loving husband and a wonderful father; and their twelve-year-old daughter, Sasha, an only child who is an excellent student, popular and happy. All appears well in this African-American household, whose inhabitants have pretty much achieved the American dream. . But one day Mel walks into her boss's office at the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and by the time she walks out again everything has changed; she is told that the office is being downsized and that her position will be eliminated. This event triggers a downward spiral in the life of the Burke family and it soon seems that the fo