by Richard Dry
To Seneca Center and the Daraja Project, thank you for giving me the chance to contribute. My deep appreciation to Patty Lemely and Paul Guay, my first readers; to Mara Melandry at CalTrans; and to my friends in many parts of the country who helped fill in the details. Thank you, also, to those of you upon whose shoulders I stand, those who have written your stories for the rest of us.
Finally, I am greatly indebted to my agent, Victoria Sanders; my editor, George Witte; and the staff at St. Martin’s Press. Thank you for your fine work and for your dedication to this project.
Praise for Leaving
“Leaving proffers not just a report on African-American lives, but an indictment of urban life in the U.S., a world in which people steal from their own families, and those families live in a diaspora, scattered geographically as well as emotionally. Leaving shocks and compels. Not for black readers only.”
—Victoria A. Brownworth, The Baltimore Sun
“Leaving has its tense moments, but you continue reading not because the narrative propels you forward, but because you care about these people whom Dry has drawn with an abundance of heartfelt compassion. He writes from a place of sympathy, and as a result, his well-drawn characters are never less than human, even at their most abhorrent or pathetic.”
—Gary Rivlin, The Washington Post
“Impressive … Dry’s mature, sensitive prose presents a compelling portrayal of civil rights activism, educational aspirations, family disintegration, sexual and drug abuse, and gang life.… Expect more from this powerful writer … recommended for both academic and public libraries and for all African-American collections.”
—Library Journal
“[Dry] has a convincing feel for the period and a seasoned eye for detail.… The characters themselves [are] haunting and well-drawn. A strong debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews
LEAVING. Copyright © 2002 by Richard Dry. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Acknowledgment is given for permission to quote from the following sources:
Fawcett Books: Black Protest: History, Documents, and Analyses 1619 to the Present, by Joanne Grant, editor. Copyright © 1968 by Joanne Grant. Used by permission of Fawcett Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Harcourt Inc.: Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton. Copyright © 1945 St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton and renewed © 1973 by St. Clair Drake and Susan Woodson. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Inc.
Hill and Wang: From Plantation to Ghetto: An Interpretive History of American Negroes, by August Meier and Elliott M. Rudwick. Copyright © 1966 by August Meier and Elliott M. Rudwick and renewed © 1994 August Meier. Reprinted by permission of Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.
Scribner: Manchild in the Promised Land, by Claude Brown. Copyright © 1990 by Claude Brown. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster.
University of Chicago Press: “Hagar and Her Children” from The Negro Family in the U.S. Copyright © 1948 by Edward Franklin Frazier. Used by permission of the University of Chicago Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dry, Richard.
Leaving / Richard Dry.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-28331-8 (hc)
ISBN 0-312-30287-8 (pbk)
1. African American families—Fiction. 2. Oakland (Calif.)—Fiction.
PS3604.R9 L43 2002
813'.6—dc21
2001041959
First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: April 2003
eISBN 9781466850408
First eBook edition: July 2013