50books_poc | #4: Virginia Hamilton, Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush

When Teresa first notices the handsome stranger out on the street, she falls hard for him. Several weeks later, he appears in her apartment, and it's only then that she knows that he's a ghost, Brother Rush. He takes Tree and her mentally challenged brother Dab on journeys into the past, and slowly Tree realizes in these glimpses of the past, Brother Rush may be telling her something about her own present.

Hamilton's writing is wonderfully lucid and descriptive, showing Tree's thoughts in a language and idiom that perfectly express her character. Here's a passage I especially liked, from Tree's first meeting with Brother Rush in her apartment:

"The sweatshirt she had on couldn't keep her warm. Yet she was aware of the moment when the cold turned into something she could live with. Fear was sealed inside her, like a tatter of paper from her ream. And if you opened the tatter, it would read: This is all the scared I can get.

The categorizing part of my brain wants to say that this is fantasy, because it's a ghost story. I suppose technically it is, but it's so rooted in reality that the supernatural doesn't feel especially fantastic. It's simply a book about people, about Tree's relationships with her brother and her mother, who has to work so hard to keep the family going that she's rarely there, leaving Tree to take care of herself and Dab. It's a bittersweet book, full of loss and sadness, yet also full of love and hope.