The Body Was There
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In the summer of 2014, twelve-year-old girl Odessa discovers that she is part of a line of “crossers,” women who move between the worlds of the living and the dead. Their job is to help those confined to a middle plane, a plane where the day an individual died repeats itself over and over. One of those confined is fifteen-year-old Tenah, a distant relative of Odessa, who has been trapped in a between world since 1858. She depends on Odessa to help her, but Odessa isn’t so keen on the idea. It is only through forces greater than herself – most notably Odessa’s grandmother Desi, a crosser herself – that Odessa reluctantly helps Tenah. Told in two different perspectives and points-of-view, The Body Was There reckons with race, gender, the legacy of slavery, and, most importantly, the responsibility of family.