The Turner House

Shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction

The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone—and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, the loss of a father.

The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunt—and shape—their family’s future.

The Turner House brings us a colourful, complicated brood full of love and pride, sacrifice and unlikely inheritances. It's a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home.

Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of 2015
A New York Times Editors’ Choice
Oprah’s O Magazine Top 10 Books of 2015
Longlisted for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

‘An expansive and ambitious novel that descends through the generations of one family's history to achieve real poignancy and power.’ —T.C. Boyle, author of Drop City and The Women

‘In this assured and memorable novel, [Flournoy] provides the feeling of knowing a family from the inside out, as we would wish to know our own.’ —New York Times Book Review

‘Flournoy’s debut is a lively, thoroughly engaging family saga with a cast of fully realized characters.’ —Publishers Weekly, starred review

‘An elegant and assured debut.’ —Washington Post

‘Flournoy’s strength lies in her meticulous examination of each character’s inner life.’ —Kirkus Reviews

‘It is Flournoy's finely tuned empathy that infuses her characters with a radiant humanity.’ —O, the Oprah Magazine

Angela Flournoy is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Southern California. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa and Trinity Washington University, and has worked for the D.C. Public Library. She was raised in California by a mother from Los Angeles and a father from Detroit.