Sing Her Name follows two musically gifted women whose lives overlap
across the boundaries of time. This third novel by Rosalyn Story, whose
critically acclaimed books treat the central role of Black people in
American music, is her best and most rewarding yet.
Beautiful and brilliantly talented Celia DeMille is a nineteenth-century
concert artist who has garnered fame, sung all over the world, and
amassed a fortune. But prejudice bars her from achieving her place in
history as one of the world's greatest singers, and she dies in poverty
and obscurity.
In 21st-century New Orleans, Eden Malveaux, a thirty-something waitress
with a beautiful but untutored voice, is the sole guardian of her
17-year-old brother. Motherless for most of their lives, she has
struggled for years to make ends meet as she fights to keep the promise
she made to their dying father: to protect her wayward brother and raise
him as if he were her own child. After a hurricane displaces them to New
York City, Eden seeks safe refuge--not only from the ensuing flood, but
also to hide her brother from the law, while she works to divert him
from a path of crime, prison, or worse.
Months into their New York stay, Eden's estranged Great Aunt Julia
summons her back to New Orleans for a brief visit, and the older woman
gives Eden something that alters the course of her life: a box she found
in the midst of flooded rubble containing a hundred-year-old scrapbook
and a mysterious and valuable gold pendant necklace belonging to one of
the greatest singers in history--Celia DeMille.
Eden returns to New York, but as she explores the artifacts of Celia
DeMille's extraordinary life, curiosity grows into obsession, then into
an inspiration that propels Eden into a world she never dreamed. With
the help of new friends, and buoyed by the diva's story, Eden's new life
in New York takes a dramatic turn toward unimagined success.
But just as she is poised to make her mark on the world stage, her
brother's dangerous choices catch up with them, and Eden must confront
buried secrets from her complicated childhood. To face the promise of
her future, Eden must first reconcile years of regrets and leave behind
the guilt of the past--and perhaps even the brother she loves.