The acclaimed bestseller—a selection of Oprah’s Book Club—that brings vividly to life the Georgetown<br>neighborhood of Washington DC circa 1925 and a community reeling from a young girl’s tragic death.<br><br>When five-year-old Clara Bynum drowns in the Potomac River under a seemingly haunted rock outcropping<br>known locally as the Three Sisters the community must reconcile themselves to the bitter tragedy.<br><br>Clarke powerfully charts the fallout from Clara’s death on the people she has left behind: her parents Alice and<br>Willie Bynum torn between the old world of their rural North Carolina home and the new world of the city; the<br>friends and relatives of the Bynum family in the Georgetown neighborhood they now call home; and most especially<br>Clara’s sister ten-year-old Johnnie Mae who is thrust into adolescence and must come to terms with the terrible and<br>confused emotions stirred by her sister’s death.<br><br>This highly accomplished debut novel reverberates with ideas impassioned lyricism and poignant historical detail<br>as it captures an essential and moving portrait of the Washington DC community