But it felt like I’d been scaled alive when Sabe told me about (Melody) coming.” “Truth is, though, she wasn’t mine to give. “Thought one day she’d grow up and I’d walk her down the aisle and give her away,” her father muses. When 15-year-old Iris tells them she’s pregnant, they mourn for Iris’ future-that-might-have-been. Sabe and Po’Boy, Iris’ parents, are proud of the life they’ve built since they met at Morehouse. More: 5 books not to miss: ‘Red at the Bone,’ ‘A Single Thread,’ Josh Gondelman's 'Nice Try' The story shifts from Melody’s perspective to other characters’ voices, jumping back and forth in time – from Iris to Melody’s father, Aubrey and her grandparents, CathyMarie, Sabe, and Sammy “Po’Boy” Simmons – to tell a tale of generational hope, regret, and pain. Woodson’s tale examines how Iris’ unplanned teen pregnancy and Melody’s subsequent birth affected the lives and opportunities of two families of disparate means. “To be the child’s mother but even at nineteen have this gut sense she’d done all she could for her?” At Melody’s debut party, Iris strains to feel a sense of attachment to her daughter. She decided early in her daughter’s life that she was done being maternal. Iris abandoned Melody years ago, leaving the toddler in Brooklyn with Aubrey so she could attend Oberlin College. Iris and Melody share a complicated history the girl calls her mother by her first name. She wears her mother’s debut dress, unworn until now because Iris was pregnant with Melody by the time of her own debut. The 16-year-old argues with her mother because she wants the musicians to play Prince’s “Darling Nikki” as she descends the stairs of her grandparents’ brownstone to greet her guests. National Book Award-winner Jacqueline Woodson’s new novel “Red at the Bone” (Riverhead, 208 pp., ★★★½ out of four stars) begins in Brooklyn in 2001 at Melody’s coming-of-age party.
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