The Body Was There
Access Restricted
Access to this document is restricted. Some items have been embargoed at the request of the author, but will be made publicly available after the "No Access Until" date.
During the embargo period, you may request access to the item by clicking the link to the restricted file(s) and completing the request form. If we have contact information for a Cornell author, we will contact the author and request permission to provide access. If we do not have contact information for a Cornell author, or the author denies or does not respond to our inquiry, we will not be able to provide access. For more information, review our policies for restricted content.
No Access Until
Permanent Link(s)
Collections
Other Titles
Author(s)
Abstract
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.