I Left My Back Door Open

(April 1999 - AALBC Best-Seller)

Publisher:  Hyperion
Date Published:  April 1999
Format:  Trade Cloth

"I am not young, or thin, or white, or beautiful,'' says the narrator of Sinclair's worldly-wise and entertaining new novel. Gun-shy after several catastrophic relationships, Chicago deejay Daphne (Dee Dee) Dupree is an outwardly successful African-American woman aching for self-realization. Sassy from the safety of her broadcasting booth, the heavy-set 41-year-old jauntily offers her weight as the cause of a recent breakup ("The brotha didn't 'preciate my meat"). In reality, Dee Dee struggles with the shame of being fat and bulimic. She yearns for mature love and the self-confidence she's sure will accompany finding the right man. Meanwhile, relationships she's relied on as stable fall into flux: the 20-year marriage of her high school friends Sarita and Phil is falling apart; her best friend, Sharon, has come bursting out of the closet, an enthusiastic lesbian at 40; Jade, her belly-dancing instructor and fellow deejay, is on the cusp of ending an unhappy marriage. Dee Dee's only constant is her cat, Langston. The mixed blessing of a sexual harassment suit at work brings union mediator Skylar into her life. Attraction notwithstanding, their romance is tentative and obstructed; his (white) ex-wife is trying to reconcile with him and his eight-year-old daughter relentlessly blocks her father's new interest. In the course of sorting all this out, Dee Dee takes stock and faces some long repressed childhood memories. Refreshingly upbeat and robustly spiritual, the novel steers clear of sentimental inspirational writing by means of its frank and funny dialogue.

Coffee Will Make You Black

Publisher:  Avon Books
Date Published:  January 1996
Format:  Trade Paper

Set on Chicago's Southside in the mid-to-late 60s, Coffee Will Make You Black is the moving and entertaining tale of Jean "Stevie" Stevenson, a young black woman growing up through the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. The novel opens at a time when, for black families, seeing a black person on television was an event; when expressions like "I don't want nothing black but a Cadillac" and "Coffee will make you black" were handed down from one generation to the next without comment. Stevie is a bookworm, yet she longs to fit in with the cool crowd. Fighting her mother every step of the way, she begins to experiment with talkin' trash, "kicking butt," and boys. With the assassination of Dr. King she gains a new political awareness, which makes her decide to wear her hair in a 'fro instead of straightened, to refuse to use skin bleach, and to confront the prejudice she observes in blacks as well as whites. April Sinclair writes frankly about a young black woman's sexuality, and about the confusion Stevie faces when she realizes she's more attracted to the school nurse - who is white - than her teenage boyfriend. As readers follow Stevie's at times harrowing, at times hilarious story, they will learn what it was like to be black before black was beautiful.

Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice

Publisher:  Avon Books
Date Published:  January 1997
Format:  Trade Paper

In her second novel, Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice, Stevie, an immensely appealing young African-American woman, is just graduating from college and is ready to expand her horizons. She goes to San Francisco with two friends as a post-graduation trip, and decides to stay when she realizes the city holds more promise for her than returning to her cramped room in her parents' house on Chicago's South Side. It was the best of times...if you knew where the party was. The year is 1975 - a time of one-night stands, disco, personal growth, and the height of the women's liberation movement - and Stevie dives into the scene. At a women's dance, she meets Traci, a cute, cinnamon-colored woman with attitude, who introduces her to yoga, hot tubs, and vegetarianism, and tells Stevie she "has enough tofu burgers in her freezer to last till we put a black woman in the White House." When their relationship becomes intimate, Stevie discovers a side to her nature that would make her mama's hair stand up. Soon, though, things with Traci go sour, and Stevie has to crash on the couch of a brand-new friend, a disco queen named Sterling. April Sinclair shows us Stevie's adventures in the go-with-the-flow atmosphere of Seventies San Francisco, with crackling dialogue and hilarious scenes that sparkle with authenticity.