Adams received critical acclaim with the pub-
lication of her first novel, Resurrecting Mingus
(2001), which tells the story of Mingus Brown-
ing, a successful, young, beautiful lawyer whose
personal, romantic life falls apart simultaneously
with her parents’ marriage after 35 years. Mingus
must come to grips with the fact that her African-
American father is leaving her Irish mother for a
black woman. Mingus finds herself in a tripartite
family whirlwind that threatens to tear her apart,
as she must choose between the father she has al-
ways loved (she is a daddy’s girl) and the mother
she also loves and may have to defend during the
divorce proceedings; all the while she endures the
antics of her sister, Eva, with whom she has had a
lifelong sibling rivalry.
Thus, in Resurrecting Mingus, Adams explores
a variety of themes—including biracialism, sib-
ling rivalry, parental relationships, love, trust,
and infidelity—and the protagonist’s efforts to
confront these various issues directly as she at-
tempts to experience, at a critical juncture in her
own life when she must venture on a new quest
for romantic wholeness (i.e., should she date black
or white men), a variety of romantic relationships.
Though race remains central in each of Mingus’s
relationships, what ultimately matters is her own
psychological wholeness, which requires that she
maintain a positive sense of self. She must con-
front her life of liminality, due largely to her bira-
cial identity; find wholeness, including romantic
wholeness; and embrace her total self. Although in
this sense Resurrecting Mingus resonates themati-
cally with TERRY MCMILLAN’s novels, Adams was
lauded by critics for her raw images and poetic
prose. Describing it as a “stunning debut novel,”
the reviewer for Booklist praised Adams for her
“vivid and direct” (910) style.
Adams’s second novel, Selah’s Bed (2003), ex-
plores issues of reconciliation and forgiveness. The
story focuses on Selah Wells, who, though married
to a pastor, Parker, continues to seek confirma-
tion and fulfillment through sex. The victim of
childhood neglect and abuse, Selah clearly suf-
fers from issues of self-esteem. Her grandmother,
Mama Gene, raised her because Ruthelen Mae,
her biological mother, was addicted to drugs and
consequently was only a fleeting presence in young
Selah’s life. Selah’s need for affection leads to her
exploitation and rape by the time she is 14. When
she falls in love with Parker, a minister’s son, and
becomes pregnant out of wedlock, Selah struggles
with the issue of abortion, its moral and personal
implications. Although she turns to photography
as a vehicle of empowerment through art, Selah is
unable to transcend the childhood scars that leave
her with an unfinished sense of self and the need
for validation through sex. Although Selah’s Bed is
not as strong as Resurrecting Mingus, most critics
agree that Adams is well on her way to becoming
an important writer.
Adams is the recipient of the prestigious PEN
USA Fellow award. Currently, she is a writing con-
sultant for Voices in Harmony, an organization
that helps at-risk and underserved youths write
and produce plays on important social issues.
She is married to novelist MICHAEL DATCHER and
pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing in
the graduate program at University of Southern
California.
Beverly A. TateAfrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian
Writing (1995)
Edited by Catherine E. McKinley and L. Joyce De-
Laney and published by Doubleday and Co., Inc.,
Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing
brings together 20 selections of fiction, nonfiction,
and poetry from women writing in the United
States, Canada, the Caribbean, Australia, and Eu-
rope. Afrekete weaves together these seemingly di-
vergent traditions and celebrates the multiplicity
of voices and experiences of black lesbians in all
their depth and variety while pointing critically to
complicated and ever-changing considerations of
black lesbian identity and experience.
The editors tease readers into remembering
that black lesbians, like other people, have complex
and remarkable stories in their lives. The notion
that real lives and real stories, unlike the politics
of identity, are not so simple that they can be told
from one point of view or one mind is crucial toAfrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing 5