Last summer on State Street A novel

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.

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. (June)