"When I was seven I told my father that I wanted to grow up to be invisible." So begins this stunning debut novel.

As a young woman of mixed race, Nellie Kincaid is about to encounter the strange, unsettling summer of her fifteenth year. Reeling from the recent separation of her parents, Nellie finds herself traveling to the family''s lake house with only her father and her estranged cousin, leaving behind the life and the mother she is trying to forget.

Now, as she navigates the twists and turns of first love and shifting family loyalties, what has always been a warm, carefree time is suddenly filled with new tensions. As the summer progresses, Nellie moves toward a definition of self that encompasses all the aspects of her paradoxical -- yet truly American -- identity, only to find her family growing more divided with each passing day. Does her newfound identity require her to distance herself from those she loves?

With depth and compassion, Rachel M. Harper charts the remarkable, captivating journey of a hero-ine''s first encounters with our vast and sometimes dangerous country. Not only is Brass Ankle Blues a story of a young woman''s search for autonomy, it is also about the things that keep family together: loyalty, forgiveness, and love.