Crystelle Mourning by Eisa Nefertari Ulen

Crystelle Mourning, the much anticipated debut of Eisa Nefertari Ulen, is part coming-of-age story with a bit of mysticism on the periphery. Crystelle is a young woman who experiences the death of her childhood sweetheart, Jimmy, during their senior year of high school in Philadelphia in the 1980s. Young, foolish and hot-headed he got himself killed on the West Philly streets by a boy they all grew up with in the neighborhood. Never coming to grips with her grief, Crystelle finds herself five years later after graduating from college, and working for an ad agency in New York City, experiencing bouts of depression and continual dreams of Jimmy. These are not ordinary dreams but actual visions of Jimmy talking to her, tweaking her memories and bringing to the forefront the underlying angst she has carried for so long.

Hamp is the young man Crystelle is practically engaged to, an urban black professional; the perfect man who wants to marry her. He is the kind of man you go to college to obtain a MRS; everything should be perfect, yet Jimmy is haunting her in a "Ghost" like state, taking her back to the streets of West Philly where they laughed, played and loved. In a constant being of discontent, Crystelle returns to the scene of the crime and to a home where a loving widowed grandfather and bitter mother reside. In flashbacks and dreams, Crystelle remembers the boy who loved her. Jimmy's death affected so many people; Crystelle, his mother, Brenda, who has left his room the same, and his father, James, who has withdrawn in to himself.

Ulen spent great detail on conversations that were sometimes repetitive and at times I had to reread to discern between the here and now and an actual dream. Reading this book intermittently was like being in a perpetual dream state like the main character, Crystelle. The language was poetic and fluid; the writing rich with metaphors and imagery thereby setting it apart from most contemporary urban literature in the market. This novel is an admirable debut and I look forward to the author's next offering.