Books like Through the ivory gate by Rita Dove
Virginia King, once a puppeteer in an experimental theater troupe, returns to her Midwestern hometown as an artist‑in‑residence at a local public school. As her puppets captivate students, she is drawn back into recollections of a childhood marked by subtle and overt bigotry, a college experience as a cellist, and a formative connection with an enigmatic fellow musician. A visit to an elderly aunt brings family secrets to light, threatening the healing she has found. Through these intertwined past and present narratives, Rita Dove paints a resonant portrait of a period in American life and presents Virginia King as a memorable contemporary heroine.
First publish date: 1992
Genre: General Fiction/General Fiction
Authors: Rita Dove
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Books similar to Through the ivory gate (20 similar books)
Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing explores the life of Irene Redfield, a married Harlem woman whose world is disrupted when her childhood friend Clare Kendry—now passing as white—reappears.
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In the Oklahoma town of Ruby, nine men attack a convent in 1976, uncovering a century of African‑American history, hardship, and survival in an intimate community of women.
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Mama Day follows Ophelia and George as they navigate love and cultural differences while witnessing the fading Gullah culture on Georgia’s sea islands, a story that echoes themes of family, heritage, and female independence.
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American photographer Jade del Cameron and friends set out to film elephants near Mount Marsabit, only to encounter the mutilated remains of four elephants and a murdered man, exposing a dangerous secret in Kenya's wildlife.
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Rita Dove’s *American Smooth* is a collection that blends rhythmic lyricism with vivid cultural imagery, celebrating American heritage through poetic forms.
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A coming-of-age story of a young African American girl in 1960s Detroit who is expected to fulfill traditional roles and learns to assert herself against the societal pressures placed upon her.
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In 1960s west Philadelphia, three African‑American sisters face the collapse of their privileged life when their father disappears and their mother breaks down, forcing the girls into foster care and a new world of survival and hope.
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Rita Dove’s *Grace Notes* weaves 48 poems that explore childhood memory, the subtle power of words, and the delicate embellishments of everyday life, positioning the collection as a subtle yet moving voice in contemporary American poetry.
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Rita Dove’s poetic collection weaves the mythic bond between mother and daughter into lyrical exploration of love, identity, and legacy.
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A heart‑wrenching tale of a Chicago family whose four adult children—Paris, Lewis, Charlotte, and Janelle—return to Las Vegas in 1994, each grappling with personal crises while their outspoken matriarch Viola confronts a dying husband and a looming health scare.
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An African‑American woman inherits a sugarcane farm in rural Louisiana and moves with her eleven‑year‑old daughter from Los Angeles to start anew, confronting family tensions, agricultural challenges, and the legacy of the South.
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Some Other Similar Books
Feedback by Rita DoveElegy by Rita Dove
The Mother's Discourse by Adrienne Rich
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats by W.B. Yeats
The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry by Randall Jarrell, ed.
The Essential Rumi by Jalal al-Din Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot
Book of Rhymes by Langston Hughes
The Penguin Anthology of Modern American Poetry by Randall Jarrell, ed.
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