DÉLANA DAMERON
Photo Credit Courtney D. Garvin
DÉLANA R. A. DAMERON received an MFA in poetry from NYU. Her debut collection, How God Ends Us, was selected by Elizabeth Alexander for the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Dameron is also the founder of Saloma Acres, an equestrian and cultural space in South Carolina.
REDWOOD COURT
Dial Press — February 6, 2024
“Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales. You have all these stories inside you: all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You write ‘em in your books and show everyone who we are.”
So begins award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel, Redwood Court. The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her: her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who, in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette, and can’t wait to taste real independence; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.
With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.
Praise for Redwood Court
1 of TIME’s “13 Best New Books in February”
A Reese’s Book Club Selection for February 2024
A New York Times Editor’s Choice/Staff pick
"Even amid heartache and turmoil, this brims with joy." —Publishers Weekly
“The scenes are brought to life by the way the author beautifully evokes the senses and focuses on intimate details, and the depiction of inherited trauma alongside profound love is powerful and moving."—Kirkus
“This novel delivers the kind of choral experience that I have savored in books as disparate as James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. Reading Redwood Court feels like wandering down a street, stopping to listen to different voices, for better and for worse. At the end of that road is Mika, still striving to understand what she is made of but sensing that part of the answer is rooted in that chorus of voices." —New York Times
“Dameron has a gift for quiet, eloquent observations that enrich scenes of everyday experiences.” —Booklist Advanced Review
“Redwood Court is big in every way. It’s a paean, a praise-song to this family, and others like them, spreading love and goodwill and community in a society that still sorely needs love and goodwill.”—Southern Review of Books
“Dameron's deep compassion and sharp eye for detail will leave readers wishing they could step through the screen door into Weesie's kitchen.“ —Shelf Awareness
“The writing is nuanced, succinct, and brilliant.” —ESSENCE
"Redwood Court is a blueprint for writing about complicated, nuanced people & places with dignity and grace. DéLana R.A. Dameron’s relentless love for Columbia, South Carolina is palpable, and her exquisite storytelling brings us a story of lineage & legacy from unforgettable characters who grab your heart and make you laugh, weep and hope with them, for them." —Renée Watson, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
“A breathtaking debut about one unforgettable Southern Black family, seen through the eyes of its youngest daughter as she comes of age in the 1990s. A beautiful exploration of a family . . . deeply moving." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
"In these pages, DéLana R.A. Dameron expertly weaves threads of grace, grit and grief into a tapestry that captures the beauty of not just one particular family, but family in general; what it means to be a part of one, and what a haven it can provide in a harsh world. This novel is a heartrending celebration of the ties that bind, and a poetic one at that." —Christine Pride, author of We Are Not Like Them, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick
“Redwood Court is a beautiful and riveting novel of generational reckoning. DéLana Dameron offers with tenderness and a lyrical sensitivity, an insider’s insight into the “big love” of the abundantly rich black southern life of tribe, community, and family.” —Kwame Dawes, author of UnHistory with John Kinsella
“Redwood Court is an example of storytelling at its best: tender, vivid, and richly complicated. A triumph of a debut.” —Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone
“Redwood Court is a generously transportive novel, one that thoughtfully renders not only each of its characters, but also the nuances of its geographies. The language within echoes, feels familiar and warm. This book carried me to a joyful elsewhere.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America