Patsy

For Patsy, a visa to America is her ticket to freedom, a passport to the 'land of opportunity'. She yearns to be reunited with Cicely, her oldest friend and secret lover, but her plans do not include her religious mother or even her young daughter, Tru. As Patsy struggles to survive as an undocumented migrant, Tru grapples with her own questions of identity and sexuality. Can she ever understand, or even forgive, her mother's decision to leave?  Dancing between the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy is the story of what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman and, ultimately, a survivor. A passionate, moving and fiercely urgent novel tracing threads of love that stretch across years and oceans. 

Nicole Dennis-Benn has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, MacDowell, Lambda and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, she lives with her wife in Brooklyn, New York, where she teaches writing. In 2018, she was named as an NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction, awarded by the New York Foundation for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Here Comes the Sun is her first novel. It won the Lambda Literary Award, and was a finalist for the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award and the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize.
www.nicoledennisbenn.com