Dear Miss Metropolitan
by Carolyn Ferrell
Buy on AmazonIntroducing an extraordinary and original writer whose first novel explores the intersections of grief and rage, personal strength and healing--and what we owe one another. Fern seeks refuge from her mother’s pill-popping and boyfriends via Soul Train; Gwen finds salvation in the music of Prince much to her congregation’s dismay and Jessenia, miles ahead of her classmates at her gifted and talented high school, is a brainy and precocious enigma. None of this matter to Boss Man, the monster who abducts them and holds them captive in a dilapidated house in Queens. On the night they are finally rescued, throngs line the block gawking and claiming ignorance.…
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"Gwin, Fern and Jesenia spent 10 years locked in a basement, enduring torture from a figure known as “Boss Man.” Ferrell’s debut novel, based on Cleveland’s Ariel Castro case, startles in its subject matter, but even more startling is the author’s moving excavation of an important, complicated story from the tragedy. Gwin lives on her love of Prince; Fern cherishes memories of dancing to Soul Train; and Jesenia lives by her wits. Ferrell’s book reminds readers that no trauma exists in an utter vacuum and that no survivor of trauma lacks dreams."
NPR Books We Love — 2021 · apps.npr.org
"so jaw-droppingly disturbing and yet enchantingly, achingly beautiful"
By the Book: Dan Chaon · nytimes.com