Banana Heart Summer: A Novel

In her lush luminous debut novel Merlinda Bobis creates a dazzling feast for all the senses. Richly imagined gloriously written Banana Heart Summer is an incandescent tale of food family and longingat once a love letter to mothers and daughters and a lively celebration of friendship and community. Twelve-year-old Nenita is hungry for everything: food love life. Growing up with five sisters and brothers she searches for happiness in the magical smell of the deep-frying bananas of Nana Dora who first tells Nenita the myth of the banana heart; in the tantalizing scent of Manolito the heartthrob of Nenita and her friends; in the pungent aromas of the dishes she prepares for the most beautiful woman on Remedios Street. To Nenita food is synonymous with lovethe love she yearns to receive from her disappointed mother. But in this summer of broken hearts new friendships secrets and discoveries change will be as sudden and explosive as the monsoon that marks the end of the sweltering heatand transforms Nenitas young life in ways she could never imagine.