Benilde Little – författare

Ina West has a wonderful family and a beautiful home - until her husband of twelve years tells her he's leaving. Suddenly she is faced with emotional turmoil and financial hardship, as well as the realisation that she herself left years ago. As she is forced to face her past and the decisions that led her where she is today, she begins to recognise that her own fear has kept her trapped in a life she never desired. Acutely observed and breathtakingly honest, this is the story of what happens when the suburban dream falls apart, and life falls together.

Who Does She Think She Is? is a richly evocative multigenerational story of three irrepressible women from the bestselling author of Good Hair and The Itch.Aisha Branch is in the midst of planning her elaborate wedding to a White man from old-line wealth when the unthinkable happens—she falls for another man, hard. All the drama stirs up old feelings in her mother and grandmother, and as Aisha confronts a painful dilemma, the three Branch women take turns telling their own stories, reflecting separately on their lives and relationships. With her signature dry wit, quietly resonant insight and sharp yet compassionate eye, Benilde Little deftly explores one family’s expectations, anxieties, and abiding love.

“[A] nuanced, Edith Wharton-style treatment of the upper reaches of black society…[Little] is an arbiter of that insular world.” —The Washington PostAbra Lewis Dixon is the envy of the fashionable, professional women of her well-heeled social circle. She leads a charmed life—having attended all the right schools, married the right man, and started a successful film production company with her best friend, Natasha Coleman—and seems like an ambassador from the world of perfection. It is only when her impeccable marriage turns suddenly shaky that her utopia is left in pieces…

From the bestselling author of Good Hair and The Itch comes a novel about a modern woman living in -- and acting out -- her role as an upper-class African-American suburban wife.Ina West is caught between the life she thought she was supposed to lead and the dreams she gave up long ago. Raised by loving but imperfect parents, Ina grew up a free spirit, getting a fine education and spending her twenty-something years as a photographer in Manhattan. But when family crisis and financial burdens came her way, Ina sought comfort in the arms of Jay Robinson, a hardworking businessman who occupied the safe, privileged world of the African-American upper middle class.As Jay''s wife, Ina has it all: the lavish home, the SUV, the soccer games...until one day Jay walks out of their marriage, leaving Ina with no one left to trust but herself. How she manages to raise three children, take up her old career, rekindle an old flame, and celebrate her newfound independence is what Acting Out is all about. By turns heartbreaking, uplifting, and wry, this novel will resonate for any woman who has struggled to find her path in life.!

In her “eminently readable memoir about turning darkness back into light” (People), the nationally bestselling author of Good Hair candidly shares her journey from having it all to plunging into a deep depression after her beloved mother’s death—and finally climbing back out.Benilde Little’s life appeared perfect. A bestselling novelist with two beautiful children, a handsome husband, a gorgeous home, and good friends, she had every reason to feel on top of the world. She was mindful of the sacrifices that enabled her to prosper and never took the good life for granted. But when illness and aging overtook her parents, and other challenges suddenly loomed, she went into a tailspin of clinical depression. Little chronicles her descent into a cavern so dark and impenetrable that she didn’t know if she’d ever recover. But, as she learns, the only road out of depression is through it. She reflects back on her protected upbringing in Newark, New Jersey; celebrates her remarkable mother; and tracks her youth from an early relationship with the Nation of Islam, to the city life of a young professional, to the domesticity of the suburbs. After finding herself sandwiched between the twin demands of elder care and childcare, she explores how, with therapy and introspection, she regained her voice and mapped a way out of her depression. Writing in the courageous tradition of great female storytellers such as Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, and Pearl Cleage, Little doesn’t hold back as she shares insights, inspiration, and intimate details of her life with her trademark candor and fearlessness. Powerful, relatable, and ultimately redemptive, Welcome to My Breakdown is a remarkable memoir about the strength within us all to rise from despair and to feel hope and joy again.