Returning the Bones – by Gin Hammond

Bebe, a bookworm with an outlandish imagination, lives a peculiarly privileged life for a Black girl during the Great Depression. Her fearless father owns a hospital and an array of businesses, making him a keen target of the KKK. Her home life is filled with a panoply of distinctive family members, including a psychic mother, a terrifying "spinster" aunt who's having a secret affair with the local white sheriff, a renegade librarian aunt, a grandmother who might be the great-great-granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton, and Grandmother Betty, a Cherokee medicine woman who suffers no fools.

Guilt over the death of a beloved family member quenches Bebe's ability to rebel against her father's suffocating expectations. A tempestuous relationship with her enigmatic boyfriend, and further challenges—both hilarious and heartbreaking—compound Bebe's inability to live a life of her own choosing, until an unlikely opportunity in post-war Europe arises. Will Bebe relinquish dreams of being the architect of her own destiny, or abandon everything she's ever known to reinvent herself in an unfamiliar world?

The book was originally written as a play, which has been performed at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, The Book-It Repertory in Seattle, and the Summer Play Festival (SPF) in Seattle.

Released: 2023