STOCKDALE
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I Celebrate myself; And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you. Walt Whitman **** CHAPTER 1 It was 1975, the end of our school year, and the beginning of one of the worst summers of my life. I was a seven-year-old kid in the second grade and it was the last day of school. My best friend at the time, a white girl named Kerrie, often pretended with me that we were Charlie’s Angels. Kerrie, a.k.a. “Jill Monroe,” was bigger than I was, tall, with the classic pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. I was “Sabrina Duncan,” the dark-haired angel. Kerrie actually looked like Farrah Fawcett—at least I thought she did until we got to high school—but then again, with my café au lait skin, dark brown eyes and black curly hair, I’ve never looked like Kate Jackson. We Angels were head-over-heels in love with Starsky and Hutch. Not David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser from the television series, but two boys in our class named David and Charles. David was “Hutch,” and that name naturally fit him; he was, in reality, tall with almost-yellow hair. Charles was dark-haired and shorter, with chubby cheeks and long eyelashes, and he was my Starsky. We gave each other gum and sat beside each other in the lunchroom every day. I even let him borrow my crayons. So, by the end of second grade, I was sure Starsky would accept my red cut-out heart that I had personally colored just for him. What followed sticks in my mind like Krazy Glue gone mad. We were walking out to the yellow school buses that we took every day to get home. Charles and I were almost to the part of the sidewalk where he would turn right to go to his bus, and I would turn left to go to mine. It was then or never. I took a deep breath and reached inside my coat, retrieved my cutout heart, and offered it to him. He took it, looked at it, and then gave it back to me. “Why don’t you want my heart?” I asked, shuddering in the rain. “I can’t, Cassie,” he answered. “Why not?” “I just can’t take it,” he said, and stepped back from me. “Aren’t we boyfriend and girlfriend?” “No, we can’t be.” “Why not?” “Because I’m white and you’re black, Cass.” And then he walked on off to his bus and left me standing there. Crushed. Just like that, the cutout heart and mine were broken. I dropped it on the ground and stepped on it. It was a rainy mess. In pieces. My first heartbreak. He was the first boy I ever really liked. Bye-bye, Starsky. * * *
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About the Book
In the small southern town of Stockdale, Alabama, where blacks live on one side of the tracks and whites on the other, Cassie Taylor wants nothing more than to get out.
Taught early that she's not free to love whomever she pleases in Stockdale due to the color of her skin, Cassie embarks on a journey that takes her into and out of the arms of bad-boy Blake, and then across the world to South Korea, to the good guy she's certain will save her.
But is Blake really out of her life for good?
In this tale of self-discovery, adventure, forbidden love and courage, find out what happens in a place where being black or white can mean absolutely nothing or everything.
" This is the memoir of a girl labeled as "black," who sees the world in Technicolor and fights for self-definition in a microcosm that revolves around flesh tones." -K. Danielle Edwards, author of Stacy Jones
"Priscilla Lalisse is a new voice from the South. Stockdale is a novel of hope in its representation of a town in transition and in its presentation of a character, Cassie Taylor, who has risen above the racism of her society." -Dr. Lewis Tatham, Professor Emeritus and Former Chair, Department of Language and Literature, Austin Peay State University
I enjoyed how the author put the topic of inter-racial relationships into the context of the post-civil rights era south. Priscilla Lalisse does an excellent job creating a realistic small town setting for the book, and her depictions of college life, and even life in Korea were detailed enough for me to visualize and feel like I was there. Reviewed by Stacey Seay of The RAWSISTAZ™ ReviewersAbout the Author
Alabama native Priscilla Lalisse-Jespersen moved to Paris from Manhattan in 1999 where she worked as a magazine editor for C++ and JOOP Magazines. Her articles appeared regularly in a variety of online publications such as Bonjour Paris, Café De La Soul, and Paris Woman Journal and B.E.T., until she launched her own webzine called Prissy Mag, which offers a unique view into every day French life, as seen through the eyes of Anglophones. Her debut novel Stockdale tells the tale of Cassie Taylor, a young heroine who longs to escape from the confines of small-town life. Her second book, Next of Kin was published in January 2011. For more information check out her author site at www.pljbooks.com.