Five perspectives on a single tragedy with life-changing results
for those directly and peripherally involved merge to tell the
story of Rachel Morse, a young biracial girl who quite literally
falls from the sky one day.

Jamie is a young boy growing up in the projects of Chicago. He
is a budding ornithologist who keeps vigil at a window overlooking
the barren wasteland of an inner city courtyard. Clutching a stolen
library copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds, he
hopes to one day see something other than garbage bags fly past.
This hobby provides him an escape from the noises that emanate
unceasingly from his junkie mother’s nearby bedroom where she
entertains her male “friends.”

On this particular day, Jamie is sure he has seen the shadow of
a great egret fly by and rushes downstairs, eager to add this bird,
exotic to the ghetto, to his life list. His hopes are dashed when
he arrives to find the dead bodies of a baby, a little boy and
their mother. The fourth body is still breathing and thus he first
encounters Rachel, the young girl at the center of this novel.

Rachel is the daughter of Roger Morse, a black GI stationed in
Europe, and Nella, the Danish woman he met and married there. Nella
and Roger’s life together as a family has been devastated by
tragedy and alcohol. A pregnant and sober Nella leaves Roger and
follows her new boyfriend to the strange land of America and
Chicago where she struggles to find a place in the world (alcohol
free) not only for herself, but also for her mixed-race
children.

Laronne Warner is a librarian who had hired Nella only four
weeks before. She has barely gotten to know Nella when her new hire
fails to show. After several phone calls, Laronne goes to check on
her and discovers the details of the young woman’s demise.
She takes it upon herself to begin clearing out the apartment and
collecting money for the surviving child, Rachel. As she packs
boxes, she uncovers Nella’s journals detailing her path to
sobriety, America and, ultimately, her death.

Upon recovery, Rachel is taken to Portland where she begins
building a new life in the home of her grandmother and Aunt
Loretta, and discovering more about exactly who she is --- this
young black girl who speaks Danish. Through Rachel’s voice,
we hear how she finds her way. The black girls don’t like
her; she is too smart, too “light skinned-ed,” and they
chide her for her hair whether it is short or long. The white boys
like her, but only for secret kisses in a church nave that no one
can know about.

It is also through Rachel’s voice, Roger’s voice and
the few sparse entries from Nella’s diary (the fifth voice)
that we learn about the alcoholism that has tormented this family
generation to generation. Not only did her parents struggle with
the disease, but throughout the novel her grandmother’s daily
“contributions” progress from a few sips a day to a few
bottles a day. A relationship with alcohol and how it fits into her
life is another thing Rachel must discover for herself.

It was a tragedy unfortunately not uncommon these days --- a
desperate mother whose misplaced love costs an entire family their
lives. This is an interesting book about how the act that becomes a
newspaper article buried on page five, readable in two minutes, can
impact the lives of people who could have blinked, looked away and
forgotten all about it. Because there are those who can’t,
there is THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY.