Kalayla

Race sexuality honesty abuse love and forgiveness are interwoven as the characters reveal themselves. Three families one Italian one Irish one black confront the legacy of the past within the context of life in 1999 Cambridge MA. Kalayla: a feisty bi-racial 11 year old whose world implodes when she discovers her mother and father belong in the Guinness Book of World Records as The Worlds Biggest Liars about her mothers family. Maureen: Kalaylas mother cocoons herself in art projects deflecting the pain of her parents rejection. Her husbands sudden death catapults her into life as a single mother raising a rebellious incomprehensible daughter. Lena: their landlady wears only black and although financially successful lives in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment. Lena is tormented by memories of the dead - her twin sons and husband and the living - two sons from whom she is estranged. Anyone who has experienced the angularities rigid pockets and soft spots of family life can take hope from reading Kalayla. It shows us that pathways for change do exist and if we choose to we can find them.