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Angela Flournoy's "The Turner House" explores what happens when economic crisis crashes straight into a family crisis. It opens with the wave of foreclosures that swept the country in 2008.

Set in Detroit, the novel explores the power of the family home, and what is bound up in the walls. A family home can be passed down through generations; it can serve as an anchor for relatives spread across the country. It's a place to "come home to", even when it's not home anymore. 

The Turner family, in one configuration or another, has lived in the house on Detroit's East Side for more than five decades. But in 2008, finances, illness and the decimation of the neighborhood force the younger generation to decide the house's fate.

Flournoy was raised in California, but her father grew up in Detroit, one of 13 children in his family. Flournoy visited the city growing up, and couldn't shake what she saw there as the foreclosure crisis took hold. Houses were abandoned; many went up in flames. Vacant lots sprouted across neighborhoods. Some blocks had only one surviving house on the street.

These realities wound their way into her fiction. "The Turner House" was named a best book of 2015 by NPR, Literary Hub, Kirkus Reviews and more. It was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the National Book Award. 

For her, Flournoy told MPR News host Kerri Miller, the book is about the shifts in family life that came at the start of the 21st century.

"Having a house that stays in a family for generations seems to be in crisis," Flournoy said. "Having an extended, nuclear family where everyone lives in the same state — I don't think that's going to happen as much in my generation." 

For the full interview with Angela Flournoy on "The Turner House," use the audio player above.

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Angela Flournoy's debut novel, "The Turner House," follows the fate of a family home on Detroit's East Side during the foreclosure crisis in 2008. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award.

A great American novel about a great American crisis

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