In Washington, D.C.’s powerful Black elite, legacy is everything. When a young heir to one of the city’s most influential institutions seeks funding to cement her future, a shadowy organization offers to help—but it could cost her far more than she’s willing to give.“A biting satire about the ever-shifting ways to perform Blackness. This is a very special book.”—Bridgett M. Davis, author of The World According to Fannie DavisNina J...

"Funny, poignant, stirring and heartbreaking . . . This book is our collective coming-of-age story . . . required reading for your favorite Black girl." — EssenceIn her debut short story collection, Camille Acker unleashes the irony and tragic comedy of respectability onto a wide-ranging cast of characters, all of whom call Washington, DC, home. A "woke" millennial tries to fight gentrification, only to learn she's part of the problem; a grade school teache...

This debut collection is a complicated love letter to Washington, DC, and to those who call it home: a TSA agent who’s never flown, a girl braving new worlds to play piano, and a teacher caught up in a mayoral race. These characters navigate life’s “training school”―with lessons on gentrification and respectability—and fight to create their own sense of space and self.

In Washington, D.C.’s powerful Black elite, legacy is everything. When a young heir to one of the city’s most influential institutions seeks funding to cement her future, a shadowy organization offers to help—but it could cost her far more than she’s willing to give.“A biting satire about the ever-shifting ways to perform Blackness. This is a very special book.”—Bridgett M. Davis, author of The World According to Fannie DavisNina J...