Loving Donovan - Softcover

Bernice L. McFadden

4.08

1,419 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1617753181 ISBN 13: 9781617753183

Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd., 2015

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"Bernice L. McFadden is one of the best contemporary literary writers out there today...Her brilliance, her talent as a novelist, is the very life she breathes into all of her characters."
--Terry McMillan, from the Introduction

"Bernice L. McFadden was one of the best writers to emerge in the post-Waiting to Exhale explosion that introduced at least a dozen Black female novelists. Loving Donovan has generated near-cult status among readers. After more than a decade since it appeared, Donovan is being reissued. How fitting that Terry McMillan has written a new introduction. If you've read Donovan before, you will fall in love all over again. And if this is your first time, prepare yourself for an intense romance between an enigmatic antihero and a heroine who will feel like your homegirl."
--Essence Magazine

"Loving Donovan is brilliant. By exploring the depth of her characters, the novel transforms what, on the surface, may appear to be the run-of-the-mill, paperback sentimental, tear-jerking coupling, into an understanding, unflinching, expertly told tale of human nature."
--AALBC

One of Library Journal's 25 Key Indie Fiction Titles for Fall 2014-Winter 2015!

"A two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist also twice honored by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, McFadden presents a love story starring Campbell and Donovan--both from shattered homes, both still hopeful, and both shaped more by history than they can imagine. Don't miss."
--Library Journal Prepub Alert

"Loving Donovan firmly establishes McFadden among the ranks of those few writers of whom you constantly beg for more."
--Black Issues Book Review

"McFadden is clearly adept in keeping the reader entertained, captivated, and on our toes to try to figure out what's going to happen next. The rich characters, life situations, and language all wrapped up in such a small book and saying so much is a feat."
--Brown Girl Reading

Praise for Bernice L. McFadden:

"McFadden works a kind of miracle--not only do her characters retain their appealing humanity; their story eclipses the bonds of history to offer continuous surprises."
--New York Times, on Gathering of Waters

"Searing and expertly imagined."
--Toni Morrison, on The Warmest December

With a new introduction by Terry McMillan.

The first section of McFadden's unconventional love story belongs to Campbell. Despite being born to a brokenhearted mother and a faithless father, Campbell still believes in the power of love...if she can ever find it. Living in the same neighborhood, but unknown to Campbell until a chance meeting brings them together, is Donovan, the "little man" of a shattered home--a family torn apart by anger and bitterness.

In the face of daunting obstacles, Donovan dreams of someday marrying, raising a family, and playing in the NBA. But deep inside, Campbell and Donovan live with the histories that have shaped their lives. What they discover--together and apart--forms the basis of this compelling, sensual, and surprising novel.

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About the Author:

Bernice L. McFadden is the author of nine critically acclaimed novels including Sugar, Loving Donovan, Nowhere Is a Place, The Warmest December, Gathering of Waters (a New York Times Editors' Choice and one of the 100 Notable Books of 2012), and Glorious, which was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She is a three-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of three awards from the BCALA. McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York.

From Publishers Weekly:

This bittersweet fourth novel by McFadden (Sugar) traces the lives of two damaged but resolute people destined for an ill-fated love affair. The reader meets protagonist Campbell as a sensitive eight-year-old living in a Brooklyn housing project. As she watches her mother weep and rant at her feckless, philandering father, Campbell promises herself that "ain't no man ever going to break my heart." At age 15, however, that promise is broken when she gets pregnant by a high school boyfriend who skips town. Donovan, meanwhile, also grows up listening to his parents' violent quarrels. When he's nine years old, he is assaulted by a pedophile in his building, an experience that impairs his future relationships with women. As an adult, he takes a city transit job and becomes a workaholic. The two meet when Campbell is a single mother in her 30s and a talented fledgling artist. She bumps into Donovan at an art show and promptly falls in love. But Donovan is threatened by Campbell's money and success. He brutally rejects her, leaving her to play out the scenes of bitter anguish she observed so often while growing up. McFadden's latest is heartfelt and competently written, with her usual flair for dialogue and well-paced narrative. Yet Campbell and Donovan respond predictably to their traumas, and Campbell is not as vivid as some of McFadden's earlier heroines. In spite of her worldly success, Campbell is an archetypal female victim, too thinly drawn to carry the melodramatic scenes of despair that cap the book.
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