{"product_id":"payback-9781612943039","title":"Payback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAward-winning author Penny Mickelbury takes readers on a beautiful and complicated journey through Harlem in 1953. This captivating story is passionate and alive, teeming with the contradictory joy and pain of Black life in America.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eWorld War II ended less than 10 years ago, and the Korean War less than one. But no one has recovered from wartime privations, especially the Colored soldiers who fought a ruthless enemy on foreign lands, expecting to return home with all the rights and privileges of American citizenship.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut those rights and privileges remain few and far between, and Mickelbury's cast of characters find themselves reflecting on the Harlem they call home: they are educated and unschooled; wealthy and desperately poor; committed to improving circumstances for Negroes and abjectly hopeless. They create a family of and for themselves--women, men, children, gays, and the proudly self-named. They commit themselves to helping create a world to benefit their people based on hard work, artistic expression, and faith in their community.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey have learned to live in the larger world by two guiding principles: Each One Teaches One, and Harm to One is Harm to All--because in this neighborhood, payback will always be swift and painful.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePENNY MICKELBURY\u003c\/strong\u003e is a trailblazing journalist, author, and award-winning playwright. She is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, was a writer in residence at Hedgebrook Women Writers Retreat, and a recipient of the Audre Lorde Estate Grant. In 2020 she was awarded the Alice B. Medal for her body of work. Before focusing on literary pursuits, Penny was a pioneering newspaper, radio, and television reporter based primarily in Washington, D.C. In 2019 she joined other \u003cem\u003eWashington Post \u003c\/em\u003eMetro Seven members as an inductee into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bywater Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51183459172626,"sku":"9781612943039","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_fae3ad21-c9ed-45db-9b34-c259d4c6f095.jpg?v=1744467493","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/payback-9781612943039","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}