In the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Joseph "Ziggy" Johnson reflects on his life. From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Ziggy had been the pulse of Detroit's famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city's African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he was also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era. In his hospital...

Ada Howard, the wife of the preacher at Nashville's Full Love Baptist Tabernacle, has a whole lot of people to take care of. There's her husband and the flock that comes with him, plus the kids at the day care centre where she works, two grown daughters, and two ailing, wayward parents. It's no wonder she can't find time to take care of herself. Then it comes: the announcement of her twenty-five-year college reunion in twelve months' time, signed...

One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbors gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants, some of whom have barely spoken to each other, become real neighbors. In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editor Margaret Atwood, Authors Guild president Douglas...