A modern-day story of family, loss, and renewal, Halsey Street captures the deeply human need to belong—not only to a place but to one another.
Penelope Grand has scrapped her failed career as an artist in Pittsburgh and moved back to Brooklyn to keep an eye on her ailing father. She has accepted that her future won’t be what she had dreamed, but now, as gentrification has completely reshaped her old neighborhood, even her past is unrecognizable. Old haunts have been razed, and wealthy white strangers have replaced every familiar face in Bed-Stuy. Even her mother, Mirella, has abandoned the family to reclaim her roots in the Dominican Republic. That took courage. It’s also unforgivable.
When Penelope moves into the attic apartment of the affluent Harpers, she thinks she has found a semblance of family—and maybe even love. But her world is upended again when she receives a postcard from Mirella asking for reconciliation. As old wounds are reopened and secrets revealed, a journey across an ocean of sacrifice and self-discovery begins.
An engrossing debut, Halsey Street shifts between the perspectives of these two captivating, troubled women. Mirella has one last chance to win back the heart of the daughter she had lost long before leaving New York, and for Penelope, it’s time to break free of the hold of the past and start navigating her own life.
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“Narrator Bahni Turpin’s performance is gorgeous. Her voice has a texture that suits the nuances of the novel’s plot: easy enough to absorb but with a depth and grittiness that make it interesting and real…Thanks to Turpin’s skilled performance, listeners come to care about these flawed, authentic people right away. She gives the varied characters distinct voices, and with a clear-eyed candor brings to life their conflicts, which expand to include larger social issues. Well-written and beautifully read, Halsey Street is worth a stroll. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
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