Orange Mint and Honey

November 5, 2007
In Brice's accomplished debut, African-American Shay Dixon, a burnt-out grad student, has a “visitation/fantasy/fever dream†featuring Nina Simone, the high priestess of soul, who counsels Shay to “go home.†To do that, she must face Nona, the drunken failure of a mother she's not spoken to in seven years and blames for a harrowing childhood that left her emotionally scarred. Still, she takes Nina's advice, heads home to Denver and discovers that Nona's now an A.A. member with a good job, a lovely home and an adorable three-year-old girl, Sunny, Shay's half-sister. Their reconciliation is complicated by Shay's stubborn anger, Nona's A.A. sponsorship of a troubled young woman and Shay's sexual awakening. Brice's straightforward prose is dead-on in describing the challenges Shay and her mother face as they reconnect.