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Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Good Dirt

When 10-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well. The crime was never solved, and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England, the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. When Ebby's high-profile romance falls apart without any explanation, she flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day 18 years ago --- the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor.