Sweet, Hereafter

by Angela Johnson

Genres: YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

After Heaven and The First Part Last, three-time Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Angela Johnson concludes her acclaimed trilogy with a poignant tale of finding where you belong and who you belong with. Shoogy left home with all her jeans still in the washer because she couldn’t think of a reason to stay. She’s not sure where she belongs, until she meets Curtis. Curtis knows for certain where he does not want to be and that’s to be back in the army. He is happy to be in Ohio, where it is quiet and he can spend time with Shoogy. But when Curtis gets orders to return to Iraq, will belonging with each other be enough to keep Shoogy and Curtis together? Angela Johnson takes us back to Heaven, Ohio in this bittersweet tale of first love found and lost.

Release date: January 4, 2011

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 128

Sample

Prologue

THERE’S A FRONT PAGE PHOTO OF MY friend Jos standing by the side of a road on a hot summer day. I almost don’t recognize him, because he’s out of place. It’s a frozen moment in time—but I’m so used to Jos being animated, funny and moving. It bothers me that one picture can define everything in other people’s minds but never really tell the whole story.

A cop in dark shades is touching him on the arm. Gently. The photographer was close, ’cause you can see every line on the cop’s and Jos’s face. There weren’t any lines an hour before.

• • •

It’s early. Everything is quiet. Too quiet. I turn on the radio to make sure there hasn’t been some kind of world-ending disaster. Hell—they do happen. More than you could ever dream they do. I’ve seen them, been a part of them, don’t even have to watch the news to see one happening.

My feet are cool on the old hardwood floors, and I don’t even mind that I’m still trying to work out a splinter. I walk to the front window.

I love the cool.

And I love the feeling I get knowing I’m walking on floors people walked on a hundred years ago. I blow the candle out ’cause finally the sun is struggling past the clouds.

The radio crackles as I stare out at Lake Erie haze.

I press my face against the window and feel cobwebs on the side of my head but don’t pull back. If I listen close I can hear cars blowing past on the road about a hundred yards away.

I listen for Curtis over the drone of the radio—I do it without thinking. Then I see the groundhogs through the window and start peeling apples for them.

I do it like I breathe or walk to the sink to get a glass of water.

Automatic.

It starts to rain, and I watch like the photographer did on that burning hot summer day, while rain streaks every inch of the window.

© 2010 Angela Johnson