Summer of the Cicadas

After attempting the unthinkable the summer before, a fragile Viola Moon escapes south to a small black college, determined to leave her summer stay at a mental health center behind. But once Vi is uncomfortably situated on A&M’s campus, a family mystery begins to erupt in unlikely ways, and the mental stability she imagined begins to dissipate. Vi becomes convinced the only way to fully regain her sanity is to pursue a relationship with Perry, the only son of a black southern elite family, who is just as precariously positioned in his own ancestral angst. Vi’s struggle to find her place at A&M and alongside Perry leads to an obsessive search for the father she can neither clearly remember nor completely forget.

Bounded by place and unrecoverable history, Summer of the Cicadas is a haunting tale of one woman’s search for home and healing.