Kendra Allen "Fruit Punch"

Co-presented with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights

We are thrilled to welcome back extraordinary writer, Kendra Allen. Following her stunning collections When You Learn the Alphabet and The Collection Plate, comes FRUIT PUNCH, a visceral memoir about growing up in a Black southern family in America that resists easy description.

Called “one of the most complete writers we have ever read” by Kiese Laymon, Kendra Allen received rave reviews for her poetry collection from The New York Times Book Review, Time, and Essence. Refinery29 described her as a “singular new talent…whose lyricism is artfully matched by the depths of the emotions she conveys” and in Allen’s latest offering, it’s not hard to see why. But FRUIT PUNCH isn’t just a memoir of identity, it’s also an essential memoir of survival that is written with blistering honesty and shining prose. Alternating between present-day conversations with her therapist and her memories, Allen guides readers through the thought patterns sexual assault survivors cycle through even decades after the fact. Allen’s story, and her clear-eyed telling of it, emphasizes the reality that Black women have been conditioned to minimize their pain and trauma.

Coming of age in Dallas, Texas, in the nineties and early 2000s, Allen had a complicated, loving, and intense family life filled with desire and community but also undercurrents of violence and turmoil. “We equate suffering to perseverance and misinterpret the weight of shame,” she writes. As she makes her way through adolescence, Allen finds herself slowly discovering outlets to help navigate growing up and ways to push against the expected performance of being a young Black woman in the South—a complex interplay of race, class, and gender that proves to be ever-shifting ground.

Inflected by a powerful sense of place and touched by poetry, FRUIT PUNCH is a stunning achievement—a memoir born of love and endurance, fight or flight, and what it means to be a witness. 

Brought to you in partnership between the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System and the Prince George’s County Office of Human Rights, with thanks to Ecco – an imprint of HarperCollins.