Homegoing

Toni Ann Johnson
Homegoing
(Accents Publishing, May 2021)

Homegoing by Toni Ann Johnson follows a middle-aged African-American woman facing loss as she returns to her conservative white hometown. This fearless book tackles issues such as race, isolation, childhood trauma, abandonment and ultimately healing. Homegoing won the Accents Publishing Inaugural Novella Contest.

Praise for HOMEGOING

“Toni Ann Johnson has in Homegoing harnessed the unique power and grace of the novella. There’s not a wasted word in this cinematically told, immediately engaging story, and yet the form affords her the length to develop characters whose deeply felt humanity makes them memorable.”
—Stuart Dybek, MacArthur Fellow and author of The Coast of Chicago, a New York Times Notable Book

“Toni Ann Johnson’s novella Homegoing is the perfect story for this moment in history. How do we, as Black people, understand all of what is changing about racism and all that is not? All of this in a moment of massive upheaval. What can women learn about ourselves when our lives fall apart? Just like in Johnson’s novel, the prose is beautiful. Yet in addition to the earnest prose, the novella brought unexpected laughter. Exactly the type of humor that we need to get through these tough times.”
—Aya de Leon, author of A Spy in the Struggle

“The poignant story of a discouraged middle-aged woman, a recently divorced, childless lounge singer who finds herself going back to the suburban town where she grew up as the only Black girl in her school. Maddie’s caustic, quite funny, relationship with her mother Velma is at the heart of what is essentially a story of healing; a woman trying to find her way again.”
—Nina Lorez Collins, New York Times-profiled author of What Would Virigina Wolf Do?: And Other Questions I Ask Myself as I Attempt to Age Without Apology and founder of The Woolfer

“In her novella Homegoing, Toni Ann Johnson examines issues of race, racism, forgiveness, and family. Her prose is luminous yet wickedly funny—an enviable combination—and her characters searingly flawed. Homegoing is that rare, wondrous literary achievement: it makes you laugh even as it breaks your heart.”
—Colette Sartor, author of Once Removed, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction

Toni Ann Johnson was nominated for an NAACP award for her novel, Remedy for a Broken Angel, and her work has appeared in Vida, Callaloo, Xavier, and elsewhere. An award-winning playwright and screenwriter (Ruby Bridges, The Courage to Love, and Gramercy Park is Closed to the Public among others), Toni Ann teaches screenwriting at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and lives in Los Angeles.