Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Goodreads Blurb

Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story in Milk Blood Heat delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.

A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.

As much as the writing was interesting, so were the myriad characters. But all the stories contain dark themes and sometimes deeply disturbing. 

A very relatable, touching, precise and eloquently held mirror to our lives. I look forward to more stories from Dantiel Moniz. 

“Love requires a bareness, a certain pliability, and I didn't thrill at the possibility of being transformed or wiped away.”