Angel & Hannah
A Novel in Verse
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The sweeping, unforgettable story of an interracial couple in 1990s New York City who are determined to protect their love against all odds—a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet
“Triumphant . . . sensuous, tender, and faceted like cut glass.”—Cathy Park Hong, award-winning author of Minor Feelings
Hannah, a Korean American girl from Queens, New York, and Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn, fall in love in the spring of 1993 at a quinceañera:
under a torn pink streamer
loose as a tendril of hair—lush—
his eyes. Darkluminous. Warm. A blush
floods her. Hannah sucks in her breath, but
can’t pull back. Music fades. A hush ~
he’s a young buck in the underbrush,
still in a disco ball dance of shadow & light
Their forbidden love instantly and wildly blooms along the Jackie Robinson Expressway.
Told across the changing seasons, Angel & Hannah holds all of the tension and cadence of blank verse while adding dynamic and expressive language rooted in a long tradition of hip-hop and spoken word, creating new and magnetic forms. The poetry of Angel and Hannah’s relationship is dynamic, arresting, observant, and magical, conveying the intimacies and sacrifices of love and family and the devastating realities of struggle and loss.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet Park (The Temperature of This Water) reimagines Romeo & Juliet in her wrenching debut novel in verse, set in early 1990s New York City. The story follows two 16-year-olds: Queens girl Hannah, the daughter of Korean immigrants and a straight-A student who spends her nights defending her mother from Hannah's father's physical abuse, and Angel, a boy of Puerto Rican descent who lives in Brooklyn and dreams of becoming a pilot. After meeting in the spring at a Queens quinceañera, the two quickly fall in love, and resolve to preserve their bond and defend it from the judgments of their parents and respective communities. By summer break, Hannah's parents disown her over the relationship and she moves into a cramped Bushwick apartment with Angel. Hannah's ethnic and family background is given somewhat richer, more nuanced descriptions than Angel's, but Park's precise, vivid verse lends a unifying consistency, blending vernacular and poetic expressions and song lyrics ("He sighs & sings a Nas lyric—like a blue smoke ~ ring, it halos the air") as she explores how the complicated natures of love, betrayal, poverty, and cultural identity affect Angel and Hannah's relationship. Readers will find this tender and realistic portrait of first love hard to forget.
