In Virginia Hamilton’s award-winning novel, Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush gripping urban poetic language, attention to detail, and descriptive prose come together to create a mesmerizing and suspenseful story.

Fifteen-year-old Teresa Pratt is bright, artistic-- and neglected. Tree, as she is known, lives alone with her seventeen-year-old mentally challenged brother Dab in an inner-city housing project and has a lot of responsibilities for someone her age. Tree is the lady of the house, making sure that the two of them eat, get homework done, and go to bed at a decent hour. Their single mother, M’Vy, works as a practical nurse and lives across town, only coming by every so often to bring them groceries, money, and to check up on them. As Hamilton writes, the kids are resigned to their existence, but realize that they are missing out: "...(Dab) would actually feel the absence of something the way Tree did, as if the painful lack were a living, breathing force." While Dab can retreat in his mind, Tree’s only escape from her drab life is a small alcove where she goes to draw-- and where she first learns that the dude she has a crush on, Brother Rush, is a ghost.

The pace of the story picks up from there, as Tree gets her first glimpse into her childhood through Brother Rush’s magic mirror. She sees herself as a baby in an unfamiliar house surrounded by relatives she never knew existed, and Dab as a young boy tied to a bed with a rope. Soon, Tree and Dab begin to make frequent trips into Brother Rush’s mirror, where, with each step back into Brother Rush’s world, Tree uncovers more of their family’s secret past. The secrets revealed, along with Dab’s mysterious illness, soon hurl Tree and her family towards an uncertain future. It is only with a tragic turn of events that they come to understand how choices made in the past still affect them today, and that Tree finally comes to realize that she has to live life for her self, and no one else.

Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush is a beautiful example of magic realism, a form of storytelling that incorporates elements of the fantastic into everyday life. Virginia Hamilton writes with clarity and honesty about the way economic struggles can affect family life, recording the good along with the bad and reserving judgment. Reserving judgment proves to be a mixed bag, however: although it’s a given that we are seeing the world through Tree’s eyes, the ending leaves you with no real feeling of growth or comeuppance for the character of M`Vy, and little is offered to explain the neglect and ill-treatment of her children, especially Dab. Still, Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush rings true as a testament to the lives of some African-American families, mother-daughter relationships, and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. This would be a welcome addition to the bookshelf of any teenage girl struggling to figure out the world and her place in it.

Gzifa Williams is a freelance writer, single mother and activist from down South.