Last Summer on State Street: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Named a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more!
"[A] powerful novel.... Tragic, hopeful, brimming with love, Wolfe's debut is a remarkable achievement."—New York Times Book Review
For fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Brit Bennett, a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.
Even when we lose it all, we find the strength to rebuild.
Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes. It's the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence. But when Fe Fe welcomes a mysterious new friend, Tonya, into their fold, the dynamics shift, upending the lives of all four girls.
As their beloved neighborhood falls down around them, so too do their friendships and the structures of the four girls' families. Fe Fe must make the painful decision of whom she can trust and whom she must let go. Decades later, as she remembers that fateful summer—just before her home was demolished, her life uprooted, and community forever changed—Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left.
Profound, reverent, and uplifting, Last Summer on State Street explores the risk of connection against the backdrop of racist institutions, the restorative power of knowing and claiming one's own past, and those defining relationships which form the heartbeat of our lives. Interweaving moments of reckoning and sustaining grace, debut author Toya Wolfe has crafted an era-defining story of finding a home—both in one's history and in one's self.
"Toya Wolfe is a storyteller of the highest order. Last Summer on State Street is a stunning debut."—Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers
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Toya Wolfe. (2022). Last Summer on State Street: A Novel. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Toya Wolfe. 2022. Last Summer On State Street: A Novel. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Toya Wolfe, Last Summer On State Street: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2022.
MLA Citation (style guide)Toya Wolfe. Last Summer On State Street: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2022.
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Toya Wolfe grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago's South Side. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Her writing has appeared in African Voices, Chicago Journal, Chicago Reader, Hair Trigger 27, and WarpLand. She is the recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston-Bessie Head Fiction Award, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Short Story Competition, and the Betty Shifflet/John Schultz Short Story Award. She currently resides in Chicago. Last Summer on State Street is her debut novel.
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- PEN Open Book Award finalist
- Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award winner
- Stephen Curry Underrated Literati Book Club Pick
Named a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more!
"[A] powerful novel.... Tragic, hopeful, brimming with love, Wolfe's debut is a remarkable achievement."—New York Times Book Review
For fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Brit Bennett, a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.
Even when we lose it all, we find the strength to rebuild.
Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes. It's the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence. But when Fe Fe welcomes a mysterious new friend, Tonya, into their fold, the dynamics shift, upending the lives of all four girls.
As their beloved neighborhood falls down around them, so too do their friendships and the structures of the four girls' families. Fe Fe must make the painful decision of whom she can trust and whom she must let go. Decades later, as she remembers that fateful summer—just before her home was demolished, her life uprooted, and community forever changed—Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left.
Profound, reverent, and uplifting, Last Summer on State Street explores the risk of connection against the backdrop of racist institutions, the restorative power of knowing and claiming one's own past, and those defining relationships which form the heartbeat of our lives. Interweaving moments of reckoning and sustaining grace, debut author Toya Wolfe has crafted an era-defining story of finding a home—both in one's history and in one's self.
"Toya Wolfe is a storyteller of the highest order. Last Summer on State Street is a stunning debut."—Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers
- reviews
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"[A] powerful novel.... Tragic, hopeful, brimming with love, Wolfe's debut is a remarkable achievement." — New York Times Book Review
"This incredible book is about pulling yourself up regardless of your circumstances. I felt this one deeply, and I hope you enjoy it as well." — Stephen Curry
"First-time novelist Wolfe writes with lacerating precision and authenticity.... In a fictional counterpart to Dawn Turner's memoir, Three Girls from Bronzeville, Wolfe's deeply compelling characters, sharply wrought settings, and tightly choreographed plot create a concentrated, significant, and unforgettable tale of family, home, racism, trauma, compassion, and transcendence." — Booklist (starred review)
"Wolfe's arresting and atmospheric narrative comes fully realized. This is a gut punch." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Wolfe has written a bittersweet coming-of-age novel set in building 4950 [of the Robert Taylor Homes] in the summer of 1999... A complex and compassionate look at the friends and families, relationships and resistance that existed in that long-gone but not forgotten time and place." — Chicago Magazine
"A poignant look at growing up in Chicago public housing by a debut novelist who lived in one of the city's most notorious developments.... Wolfe has a wonderful ear for dialogue, deploying pitch-perfect vernacular and slang." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
"This coming-of-age story is laced with self-discovery and shows how tragedy in childhood can follow us forever." — Good Housekeeping
"Toya Wolfe is a storyteller of the highest order—a wise and compassionate chronicler of girlhood, of Chicago, and of the things that make us human. Last Summer on State Street is a stunning debut." — Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers
"Last Summer on State Street is a triumph, a beautiful ode to the humanity, complexity, and compassion of people in a community too often defined by pathologies. You will root for the brave and surefooted Felicia, Precious, Stacia, and Tonya, as well as their families—all striving amid the rubble. What a lovely debut told with warmth, grace, and a piercing affection." — Dawn Turner, author of Three Girls from Bronzeville
"Last Summer on State Street is a love letter to girlhood, the tenuous bonds of friendship, and the places we call home. As a daughter of Chicago's South Side, this novel took me inside a community I just passed by, but didn't truly see. Wolfe dazzles in this intimate portrait of race, grief, and the times in our lives that shape who we become." — Nancy Johnson, author of The Kindest Lie
"[A] thoughtful snapshot of the end of public housing high-rises in Chicago." — Chicago Tribune
"Last Summer on State Street is a beautifully observed portrait of family and female friendship. Toya Wolfe is a marvelous writer; her deft storytelling and keen understanding makes her debut novel a great pleasure to read." — Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author of The Time Traveler's Wife
"[R]eaders who enjoyed Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street will fall in love with this book.... Racism, the power of our own histories, and the regrets that shape our futures are all on gorgeous display in Toya Wolfe's Last Summer on State Street." — Manhattan Book Review
"Last Summer on State Street is an ode to Black girls who...
- premium: True
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January 1, 2022
In Honey and Spice, following Babalola's buzzy debut story collection, Love in Color, young Black British woman Kiki Banjo--host of a popular student radio show and known for preaching bad-relationship avoidance--gets tangled in a fake liaison with the very guy she's been citing as big trouble. From Bays, co-creator of the Emmy Award-winning series How I Met Your Mother, 2015 New York-set The Mutual Friend features Alice Quick, mourning her mother, barely managing as a nanny, and trying to make herself sign up for the MCATs even as her tech millionaire brother experiences a religious awakening. In Blush author Brenner's latest, three sisters from a Gilt-edged family in the jewelry business are torn apart following a publicity stunt gone wrong, with one sister dying in a subsequent accident and her daughter struggling to regain traction within the family. In Coleman's Good Morning, Love, aspiring songwriter/musician Carlisa "Carli" Henton's efforts to keep her business and personal lives separate crumble when she meets rising hip-hop star Tau Anderson (50,000-copy first printing). From Egyptian-Irish BBC broadcaster El-Wardany, These Impossible Things features friends Malak, Kees, and Jenna, on the verge of adulthood as they struggle to be good Muslim women yet wanting to follow their dreams (50,000-copy first printing). In Fowler's It All Comes Down To This, three sisters--freelance journalist Beck, struggling with her marriage and a desire to write fiction; Claire, an accomplished pediatric cardiologist, recently divorced; and Sophie, leading a glamorous life she can't afford--face their mother's impending death and the fate of their beloved summer cottage on Mount Desert Island, ME. In Ho's Lucie Yi Is Not a Romantic, a follow-up to the LJ-starred Last Tang Standing, a hardworking career woman gives up on finding the right guy after her fianc� calls off their marriage and signs up for an elective co-parenting website so that she can have a baby--with unexpected consequences. In USA Today best-selling Moore's latest, Maine is not exactly Vacationland for Louisa when she visits her parents one summer with her three children, as she's dealing with an unfinished book, an absentee husband, and a father suffering from Alzheimer's, plus a young stranger in town trying to get her own life in order (100,000-copy first printing). In popular Patrick's The Messy Life of Book People, Liv Green forms a tentative friendship with the mega-best-selling author for whom she works as a housecleaner but is surprised when the author dies suddenly and in her will asks that Liv complete her final book (75,000 paperback and 10,000-copy paperback first printing). In Saint X author Schaitkin's Elsewhere, an interesting departure, Vera grows up in a small town where for generations women keep vanishing mysteriously (200,000-copy first printing). Vercher follows the Edgar-nominated, best-booked Three-Fifths with After the Lights Go Out, about a biracial MMA fighter aging out of his career and facing his father's end-stage Alzheimer's when he scores a last-minute comeback fight. Already a multi-award winner, Wolfe debuts with Last Summer on State Street, about Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens and two close-as-hugging friends--a happy threesome that expands to an uneasy foursome even as the Chicago Housing Authority prepares to tear down the high-rise in the projects where Fe Fe's family lives (50,000-copy first printing).
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Starred review from April 11, 2022
Wolfe debuts with the heartbreaking story of a young girl and her family during a summer of destruction and tragedy. It’s 1999 and the Chicago Housing Authority is tearing down the Robert Taylor Homes, where 12-year-old FeFe Stevens lives with her mother and older brother, Meechie. FeFe enjoys the summer double-dutching and running around with her friends Stacia Buchanan, part of the building’s ruling gang family, and Precious, a religious girl from FeFe’s church. After a new girl, Tonya, appears, FeFe invites her to play with them despite Stacia’s dislike of her. Wolfe’s richly realized characters endure racism, displacement, and violence, but also experience love. Short, evocative chapters build a foreboding sense of the inevitable while FeFe is forced to reckon with harsh realities around her, among them Tonya’s mother’s crack addiction, Stacia’s gang loyalty, Meechie’s struggle to resist gang life, and other ravages of life in the project. As the destruction of their building approaches, tensions and violence rise. By the traumatic end, FeFe is left lonely and scared, but her pain pushes her to escape. Wolfe’s arresting and atmospheric narrative comes fully realized. This is a gut punch. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, DeFiore & Co.
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Starred review from May 1, 2022
Children, cued to joy like flowers to the sun, learn to navigate the perils of South Side Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes, an enormous high-rise public housing project, forging friendships and having fun in spite of poverty, drugs, police brutality, and gang warfare. Twelve-year-old Fe Fe (Felicia), raised by a diligent and loving mother along with Meechie, her older brother, is smart and bighearted, extending her close friendship with equally well-loved Precious to the less-fortunate Stacia and Tonya. But their already precarious lives turn even more treacherous in 1999 as the city starts tearing down the towers. First-time novelist Wolfe writes with lacerating precision and authenticity, building her reverberating tale on bedrock Black Chicago history and her own experiences growing up in this besieged community. While Fe Fe dreams of being a teacher in the sanctuary of her book-filled bedroom and Precious is enfolded within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Meechie, Stacia, and Tonya are subjected to violation, violence, and ruthless gang pressure. In a fictional counterpart to Dawn Turner's memoir, Three Girls from Bronzeville (2021), Wolfe's deeply compelling characters, sharply wrought settings, and tightly choreographed plot create a concentrated, significant, and unforgettable tale of family, home, racism, trauma, compassion, and transcendence.COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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- PEN Open Book Award finalist
- Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award winner
- Stephen Curry Underrated Literati Book Club Pick
Named a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more!
"[A] powerful novel.... Tragic, hopeful, brimming with love, Wolfe's debut is a remarkable achievement."—New York Times Book Review
For fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Brit Bennett, a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.
Even when we lose it all, we find the strength to rebuild.
Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building...
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