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Overview
When Noire, a hip, Afro-wearing Ph.D. student, walks into Brown Betty Books, her righteousness kicks in to overdrive amid the self-identified "talented tenth" who wear their double degrees and five-hundred-dollar shoes like badges of honor. And then Innocent, a well-heeled investment banker from Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, walks in and turns her on her head. Innocent seems interested in her -- but he's one of them.
Before meeting him, Noire shunned the "bourgie" world of black-moneyed cosmopolitans like Innocent, opting instead for socially conscious (but economically challenged) artists and urban intellectuals. Their mutual attraction blossoms into lust -- and eventually love -- but it lives in the shifting sands of personal beliefs and professional ambitions that are often at odds.
Set in New York City with jaunts to Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean, A Love Noire is the story of an unlikely couple that transcends all they've known to learn the redemptive power of love.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780062116642 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 06/11/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 322 |
| File size: | 876 KB |
About the Author
Erica Simone Turnipseed's debut, A Love Noire, won the Atlanta Choice Author of the Year Award from the Atlanta Daily World. A philanthropist, Turnipseed founded the Five Years for the House Initiative, a fund-raising drive for the Afro American Cultural Center at Yale. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn, New York.
Read an Excerpt
A Love Noire
A NovelBy Erica Turnipseed
Harper Collins Publishers
Copyright © 2003 Erica Turnipseed All right reserved. ISBN: 0060536799Chapter One
See No Evil ...
Noire was in the wrong place at the wrong time, an Afro in a sea of perms. Regretting her decision to wear a thong that rubbed her cheeks like industrial-strength dental floss, she adjusted herself surreptitiously and cut her eyes at her lacquered, perfumed, and coiffed business-casual brethren and sistren at Brown Betty Books clutching copies of Marcus Gordon's bible on black folks and finance.
First, Jayna lied. Second, Jayna was late. Noire rammed her hand into the pocket of her waterlogged overcoat, crumpling the copy of Jayna's e-mail message that disingenuously proclaimed the evening to be about black empowerment and a magnet for progressive brothas. Instead, she was stuck trying to amuse herself amid a swarm of coffee-colored men whose tailored trousers and five-hundred-dollar shoes attracted equally well-heeled women with hungry eyes. Noire hated the pose.
Even Brown Betty herself - her head a cascade of golden dreadlocks and her body awash with purple fabric and musk-scented cowrie shells and crystals - looked at, through, and past Noire in the time it took her to say hi. Clearly, her hair was not political tonight.
Her disdain mounting, Noire railed against the ready display ofbrand-name degrees, six-figure salaries, and gentrified addresses that smacked of a latter-day slave auction. Was this what the Civil Rights Movement was all about?
"Don't hate, congratulate!" she heard one of her sistas tell an empathetic friend. She imagined they were corporate lawyers.
Noire made a plastic cup of white wine her temporary companion. She sipped it too fast and scanned the bookshelves lining the walls. Her eyes flitting over the haphazardly stacked volumes, she consoled herself with the presence of books by Maya Angelou, Ben Okri, Toni Morrison, and Edwidge Danticat. She jotted down a few titles in her Filofax, crammed it into her mini-backpack, and refilled her cup with seltzer before reclaiming her mantle of righteous indignation at the scene. Measuring the smugness of those around her with the yardstick of her own discomfort, Noire wondered about Jayna. Where was homegirl?
Jayna was straight-up wrong. She just was. Fifteen years of friendship with Noire should have taught her that, at twenty-eight years old, Noire had no time or interest in the self-congratulatory games of "name-that-Negro" that the newest generation of the talented tenth had a particular fondness for. Wasn't the biggest argument that Jayna and Noire ever had over love and money? Then high school seniors, they had fanatical obsessions with Terrence Trent D'Arby (Noire), Blair Underwood (Jayna), LL Cool J (both), and half the boys in their Queens neighborhood. At seventeen, Jayna was then a recent nonvirgin and reflective.
"Sex is no big deal. Mama says it's as easy to love a rich man as a poor man. I plan to marry rich!"
"Jayna: Sold to the highest bidder!"
"Let's hear you say that when you're shacked up on skid row!"
"Fuck you!"
"At least someone does want to fuck me! And, Nicholas is going to Stanford, too! I suggest you check your attitude."
Noire remembered the sting of Jayna's words. She had masked her hurt with anger over the Jayna-Nicholas hookup; she would have done anything for just a kiss from him. Shrugging off her thoughts, Noire became annoyed with her unplanned solitude at the bookstore and resolved to pass the time near a ripe discussion between Brown Betty's yards of purple fabric and a buppie poster boy. Amusing herself with her role of infiltrator, Noire nodded at both parties who, as recent Harlem residents themselves, vigorously debated the effects of the latest wave of multicultural homeowners into "their neighborhood." Her interjected comment about the displacement of longtime Harlemites because of the steep increase in rents received a cool glance from Buppie Poster Boy and a huff from Brown Betty. She wondered if they bought their groceries in lower Westchester.
Jayna was still missing in action when, at seven-thirty, Brown Betty asked everyone to sit for the start of the reading. Buppie Poster Boy glared at Noire before revealing himself to be the center of attention by propping himself against a stool at the front of the room and holding a much book-marked copy of his tome. His face looked important and solemn, his thirty-two privileged years filling the air. Five rows of mismatched chairs ringed him in a tight arc. Noire claimed a place toward the back of the store and attempted to hold the aisle seat to her right for Jayna. She figured that Jayna was trying to be slick, timing her arrival so as to miss the start of the reading and thus the brunt of Noire's venomous response to her. Planting her bag on the chair, Noire surveyed the assemblage of about forty-five people and caught the eye of Jayna's friend Alan. He was too far away to say anything so she mouthed a tepid hello.
Marcus Gordon had already shared five of his ten commandments of creating wealth in the black community when someone approached Noire. "Is this seat taken?" he whispered, handing Noire's bag back to her and lowering himself into the chair. He raised his right fist in an abbreviated black-man salute to the pontificating Marcus and settled into immediate concentration upon his words.
Arrogant, she thought, settling her bag onto the floor in front of her. She stared ahead but noticed his well-defined profile in her peripheral vision. Probably full of himself.
"Number Five is 'Own instead of rent.' Too many of us have spent too much money on our sound system, our silk sheets, and our summer vacation without first investing in our futures. If you don't own your spot, you're just making someone else rich."
Noire thought about the late rent check she had put in today's mail and the vacation she and Jayna were taking to New Orleans in a couple of days ...
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Love Noire by Erica Turnipseed
Copyright © 2003 by Erica Turnipseed
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Reading Group Guide
Introduction
With the wit of Sex in the City and the erotic sophistication of Love Jones, this wickedly frank debut novel portrays latter-day black life, the New York City dating game, and the insatiable quest for love.
Noire Demain, a Ph.D. candidate at New York University, is a 20-something bohemian with an appetite for intellectual stimulation and eclectic fashions. And she's looking for her own brand of social consciousness in a delectable black man's package. So, when she finds herself an "afro in a sea of perms" at Brown Betty Books, she's not happy about it. Her best girlfriend Jayna stands her up and leaves her to fend for herself in a room full of black urbanites with six figure salaries and summer homes on Martha's Vineyard. This is not Noire's idea of a good time.But rising above the coiffed and coffee-colored faces is a particularly compelling example of black manhood -- Innocent Pokou, a velvety dark, tall, and gorgeous African from Côte d'Ivoire. Innocent is instantly attracted to Noire's energy and beauty. And he's available. An investment banker who belongs to an African elite of wealth and privilege, Innocent is cosmopolitan, ambitious, and intrigued with Noire. Noire's own desire-filled intrigue wins out over her disdain for the Buppie set and she surprises both she and Innocent by giving him her contact information. Before long, they're exchanging e-mails, meeting for drinks at chic places, and finding out that the attraction is indeed mutual.
They may be in love. They also may be totally wrong for each other. Their ideologies -- as well as their closest friends -- are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Their cultures areequally dissimilar. And with his family in Côte d'Ivoire pressuring him to find an "appropriate" wife, is Innocent willing to get serious with Noire?Then, as they say, "stuff" happens. A Fourth of July weekend at a beach house with a mix of his friends and hers will lead to emotional fireworks and a bonfire of unexpected attractions. Add the return of a former lover and a journey -- actual and metaphorical -- for both Innocent and Noire, and suddenly bedroom promises seem made to be broken...unless these two extraordinary people can discover what matters most, what touches deepest, and what fulfills the needs of both heart and soul.
A Love Noire tolls the bell for the black urban professional. It presents clashing ideologies at every turn through the lives of Innocent, Noire and their friends and family. It is upon their collective stage that we confront diverse and incongruent black identities, romantic expectations, and social and financial aspirations. Their hearts entangled in a powerful love burdened by the weight of competing interests and fragile chosen identities, Innocent and Noire fight to sustain a relationship that successfully incorporates the best of both worlds.A daring exploration of color and class within the black community through a no-holds-barred portrait of a relationship, A Love Noire is a refreshing, richly entertaining look at love today.
Questions for Discussion- Noire observes that Innocent "knew a life that most Americans didn't experience and fewer realized exists in Africa. He made no apologies and felt no contradictions about who he was." Does Noire feel contradictions about who she is? If so, what are her conflicts about her identity?
- Contrast the parents of Noire with those of Innocent. How much do you feel that family influences a person's choice of a partner? Why did Noire choose Innocent? Why does Innocent choose Noire?
- Now look at Grand-mere Demain. What has been her influence in Noire's life, both positive and negative?
- Why is Noire affected by skin color and hairstyle? Do you feel that a light skin tone and so called "good hair" are still given preference in the African American community? If so, why? Do you see this changing in the next decade?
- Innocent thinks this about Noire: "She unnerved him, energized him, extended him into the rough territory beyond himself. But the minute he knew he had her he didn't know what to do with her." Discuss Innocent's character. Why does he not "know what to do with her"?
- Several characters raise provocative issues about being black and American and still celebrating the Fourth of July. What are the arguments? What is Innocent's viewpoint? What is Noire's?
- What do you make of Noire's sexual experimentation with Arikè? Do you feel it is believable in the context of the story? What about her relationship with Professor Fuentes, her NYU mentor? Is there a sexual element?
- Contrast these relationships with Noire's long-time friendship with Jayna. What forms the basis of their bond? At this stage in Noire's life, do you think she shares more in common with Jayna or Arikè?
- Innocent says to Noire, "Lasting relationships aren't built on love. There's compatibility, having similar goals and complementary dispositions, having the will to see it through…" Do you agree or disagree? Do you believe Innocent really thinks that, or is he just having second thoughts about Noire?
- What is the significance of Noire's name? What about Innocent's? Are their names symbolic? Ironic? Think about the book's title. In what ways does it foretell the story?
- Discuss the other young couples in the book: Arikè/Dennis and Marcus/Lydia. Why do their relationships seem to work? What about Jayna? Why does she have difficulty with a long-term relationship?
- When Noire goes to Jayna for advice about her relationship with Innocent, they reminisce over the advice Noire's mother had given her when she was an undergraduate to wait a year before becoming physically intimate with a man. At the time, both she and Jayna balked at the suggestion as unrealistic and they still don't follow it now. How do you think physical intimacy affects the pacing and intensity of a relationship? Does it have unintended outcomes? What advice would you give Noire or Jayna as they pursue love?
- What are the overarching lessons about love in this story? Who learns them? What kinds of love relationships -- romantic, familial -- do we witness and how do these relationships grow? How do the characters grow in their understanding of love?
- What do you predict for Noire's future and for Innocent's?