The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover A quote from author Tayari Jones reads “Prepare to be challenged, and changed.” in black writing at the top of the cover. Directly below this, the title “Pomegranate” in larger black capitals. Below this, text reading “A Novel” in smaller black capitals. The author’s name “Helen Elaine Lee” is at the bottom of the cover in slightly larger black capitals. The background is a colour gradient, with creamy orange colouring across the upper left corner transitioning into dark teal in the lower right corner. In the centre, art of a red pomegranate fruit. The fruit is missing a slice so that three large sections of seeds are visible. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Alcoholism
• Drug Use
• Drug Abuse
• Emotional Abuse
• Verbal Abuse
• Child Abuse
• Child Sexual Assault
• Rape
• Sexual Assault
• Toxic Relationship
• Racism
• Death of a A Parent
• Confinement and Incarceration
• Homophobia
• Sexual Content

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Summary:

A gripping and powerful novel of healing, redemption, and love, following a queer Black woman who works to stay clean, pull her life together, and heal after being released from prison.

Ranita Atwater is “getting short.”

She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. With three years of sobriety, she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children.

My name is Ranita, and I’m an addict, she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? As she claims the story housed within her pomegranate-like heart, she is determined to confront the weight of the past and discover what might lie beyond mere survival.

Ranita is regaining her freedom, but she’s leaving behind her lover Maxine, who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down, while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce, smart, and sometimes funny voice, Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman, even as she draws on family, memory, faith, and love in order to choose life.

Perfect or fans of Jesmyn Ward and Yaa Gyasi, Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America: a story of loss, healing, redemption, and strength. In lyrical and precise prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction, and of one woman’s determination to tell her story.

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Notes:

A paperback version of this book looks due to be released at the end of January 2024. There is already a hardcover version.

There is an audiobook.

There is an ebook. There is a kindle version.

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Archivist Comments:

The topics in this book can be and do get quite heavy at times, but it all seems to have been handled in a very well done, very thought provoking way. Some people have commented that that means the story did feel a little slow in areas, but not necessarily in the sense that the narrative was negatively impacted.

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