By Naima Coster
It is 1992 when Naima Costerâs sophomore novel, âWhatâs Mine and Yours,â opens in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina. Two men, smoking cigarettes outside an empty cafe, share the stories of their families. Though their chat seems little more than â15 minutes of smoking and standing together,â it is through this brief but candid exchange that we come to share two fathersâ dreams for four children who will be brought together by the impending misfortunes of these very men.
After a harrowing and gut-wrenching opening chapter, we discover Gee, a contemplative and grieving Black boy living with two steely women who have chosen to love him despite not loving each other. Gee masturbates compulsively â and the compulsion only worsens when he finds himself in the midst of a school busing dispute where he will be emotionally terrorized, not only by new classmates and their parents, but by his own mother, who pushes in all the wrong ways.