These Same Long Bones is a radiantly generous story of loss and redemption for a Southern black community and the man who embodies its citizens' individual and collective dreams. Compassionate in its voice and vision, it lovingly evokes the rhythms of daily life and underlying faith of an insular world rarely depicted in fiction.

The Hay-Ti section of Durham, North Carolina - the "colored" part of town - is a self-sufficient, middle-class enclave carefully guarding its fragile independence on the eve of integration. At the center of Hay-Ti's bustling prosperity is Sirus McDougald, president of the bank, a man whose integrity and warmth are matched by his sense of responsibility to the people he loves. But Sirus has suffered an unthinkable tragedy: the death of his young daughter, Mattie, in a fall from her slide.

Mattie was his treasure, his heart, and with her death Sirus has lost all his dreams, all his hope, and all his will to fight.

And so when Durham's white power brokers make an ominous incursion into Hay-Ti, endangering its cohesion, Sirus must rally himself to act. Strength can come only from one source - the people who are as much a part of him as his own skin and bones - but they, too, are badly shaken. Torn between private sorrow and public duty, Sirus makes a courageous decision that turns his grief to grace.

From Sirus to his bereft wife, from the local busy body to the ambitious preacher, These Same Long Bones embraces its unforgettable characters with warmth, humor, and deep affection. Through its intimate glimpse of a close-knit black community that presciently viewed integration as both a promise and a threat, it poignantly recalls a way of life poised at an irreversible moment of change.