Our Gen: A Novel

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Overview

“Our Gen is warm and smart, accessible yet meaningful, a beach read with strong writing and emotional heft.”—BookPage

Residents of an active-living retirement community revert to lives of youthful indulgence, even as time-bomb secrets of their pasts tick toward explosion. 

The Gen—short for Sexagenarian—is an upscale fifty-five-plus community located in the bucolic suburbs of Philadelphia. Main character Cynthia befriends the Gen’s two other Black residents, Bloc and Tish, as well as Lavia, who everyone assumes is from India. They regularly convene to smoke weed, line dance, and debate politics and philosophy as the wine goes down like silk. Their camaraderie is exhilarating. 

But beneath the fun and froth, storms gather. With its walls of windows gushing light and air, the Gen becomes the catalyst for secrets to be exposed. 

Shifting the narrative between the characters’ pasts and the present day, Diane McKinney-Whetstone deftly builds suspense as she captures with insight, poignancy, and humor, the scars, tenderness, and swagger of those not yet old, but no longer young, coming to the mean acceptance that life is finite after all, who knew. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063140110
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	658,323
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

The author of the critically acclaimed novels Tumbling, Tempest Rising, Blues Dancing, Leaving Cecil Street, and Trading Dreams at Midnight, Diane McKinney-Whetstone is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Literary Award for Fiction, which she won twice. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband.

Editorial Reviews

08/29/2022

McKinney-Whetstone (Lazaretto) spins a funny and unsettling story set in a retirement community outside Philadelphia, where four boomers, all people of color, forge strong bonds and address the horrors of their past lives. Bloc, a retired scientist, is the only Black man in the complex. The book begins with him entering a social held by the community, but unfortunately, Bloc is prematurely showing the effects of a male enhancement drug he took earlier, hoping he might consummate his burgeoning relationship with Tish, a gorgeous and wily Black woman. Their friend group also includes Lavia, a woman of color who keeps up an air of mystery about her origins. When Cynthia, another Black woman, arrives, a love triangle heats up involving her, Bloc, and Tish, until they realize how important it is to maintain their relationships in a majority-white space. Bloc shares how he was sexually assaulted as a child, and Tish how her father was found dead on the steps of a brothel. By the end, the author reveals how Cynthia’s history dovetails with Tish’s, and the secrets of Lavia’s past. The plot is rather convenient, and the repeated weed smoking and classic R&B references start to wear thin, though McKinney-Whetstone demonstrates a keen understanding of her characters. It makes for a refreshing view of a generation so often presented as white. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (July)

Publishers Weekly

2022-04-27
For Cynthia, selling her West Philly row house and moving to a swanky senior community in the suburbs seemed like a good idea when her son suggested it.

When Cynthia moves to the Sexagenarian, she isn’t exactly thrilled. She misses her neighborhood and the house that saw her through a failed marriage and raising a successful son. While she stands to make a mint on the sale to a young White couple, she also feels troubled by her complicity in gentrification. And she’s concerned about meeting other Black retirees at what everyone calls “the Gen.” But just as when she was an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania, the people of color find each other, and soon ex–nonprofit director Cynthia, good-time-girl Tish, former(ish) investigator Lavia, and dapper scientist Bloc make a happy foursome, gathering at Tish’s house to eat, dance, watch movies, get high, and unpack their pasts. Sharp observations and spot-on period references land well: Cynthia ruefully reflects on a “career that rose and rose despite the racism, sexism, then petered because of ageism,” and tasty name-checks include Edge of Night and Shake ’n Bake. Less tasty, though far more prevalent: stiff and cursory dialogue, a terrible meet-cute involving a priapism, and truly odd meat metaphors (two separate sets of lips are “thick and salty like seared steak fat” and “like bacon sizzling in a cast-iron pan, plump and glistening”).

Cute premise—Black Golden Girls move into Melrose Place—makes a fine pilot pitch. But a novel? Not so much.

Kirkus Reviews

Our Gen is warm and smart, accessible yet meaningful, a beach read with strong writing and emotional heft.” — BookPage

“Rooted in intrigue, humor and potential romance, though never far from heartache, Our Gen may be as close as revered and award-winning Philadelphia author Diane McKinney-Whetstone ever comes to the Beach Read section. Its main foursome—all nonwhite residents of a schmancy 55+ 'active living' community somewhere outside Philly—like to drink, crack jokes and smoke weed, but there are secrets bubbling just under the surface that may threaten the group dynamic. As always, it’s about characters for McKinney-Whetstone, and these four leap off the page with charm, vitality, and vulnerability.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

“McKinney-Whetstone has a gentle storytelling style peppered with delightful turns of phrase. Her sexagenarian characters Cynthia, Bloc, Tish, and Lavia live more boldly and more honestly than their adult-age children, and probably have more sex too.” — Glamour

“Told with tenderness, insight, and humor. . . . Diane McKinney-Whetstone details the lives of four sexagenarian residents of a suburban retirement community who revel in youthful indulgences as they grapple with aging, regret, and long-held secrets.” — Shondaland

“McKinney-Whetstone (Lazaretto) spins a funny and unsettling story set in a retirement community outside Philadelphia, where four boomers, all people of color, forge strong bonds and address the horrors of their past lives. . . . McKinney-Whetstone demonstrates a keen understanding of her characters. It makes for a refreshing view of a generation so often presented as white.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Ahhhhhh. That’s what you’re going to say when you have a cold beverage next to your chair and this wonderful surprise of a book in your lap. . . .Enjoy, and ask yourself if your book club might not be down with it, too.”
— Bookworm Sez

From the Publisher