One Night in Georgia

August 12, 2019
Set against the tumultuous summer of 1968, Norfleet’s novel is a rich, devastating story of lives trapped in a violent period of history. Three black friends drive from New York City to Spelman College in Atlanta to begin their senior year. Zelda, the narrator and daughter of civil rights activists; Veronica, from a wealthy family; and Daphne, whose mother was abandoned by Daphne’s white father, hit the road using the Motorist Green Book, a guide for black motorists to hotels, cafes, and restrooms that will serve them. The girls see promise ahead, having struggled with tragedies: for Zelda, witnessing her father’s murder by police; for Veronica, escape from an arranged marriage; and for Daphne, her mother’s suicide. In warm summer days and nights on the road, the characters discuss racial uplift versus black power, and nonviolence versus black militancy. However, as the trio drive deeper into the Old South, they discover that civil rights are slow in coming below the Mason-Dixon line. When their car breaks down in rural Georgia, the novel takes a dark turn. Forced to stay in the small segregated town to await a car part, the girls stumble into a racially charged situation at a local dance. Norfleet brilliantly depicts what it means to be a black female in a tempestuous period of American history, and provides a gripping narrative to boot.

May 15, 2019
Zelda Livingston's best friends, Veronica and Daphne, show up at her Harlem brownstone in Veronica's brand-new, candy-apple-red Ford Fairlane convertible, with wild ideas about a road trip to Atlanta. Zelda, whose civil-rights-attorney father was killed by the police a few years before, is wary of the danger below the Mason-Dixon Line, but it's their last summer before their senior year at Spellman College. They are soon joined by Daniel, a family friend who goes to Morehouse and has no time for the Motown music Zelda loves. Their cinematic, sentimental road-trip-novel vibe is often interrupted by reality as they get pulled over for increasingly specious reasons. Still, it's fun until mechanical trouble has them staying overnight with a college friend in rural Georgia. Norfleet's origins as a romance writer show in the slow burn of Zelda and Daniel's attraction, but it's the female friendships that drive this heartbreaking novel of awakening. The deceptively breezy tone belies the hard truths of the story, making it a good fit for a wide range of book groups.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)