Aside from works in translation, my favorite category of literature is the debut novel. It’s exciting to discover new voices, learn about experiences that may differ from our own, and see the directions in which young writers want to take contemporary fiction. If advance praise is an indication, then one of 2015’s most highly anticipated works by a first-time novelist is THE TURNER HOUSE by Angela Flournoy. Unlike many debut novels in hardcover, this family drama by Flournoy, a former librarian and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has several blurbs from established authors. It’s worth noting, however, that five of the six authors who wrote the effusive praise that appears on the book jacket have a connection to the University of Iowa or its Workshop. THE TURNER HOUSE is instead a fairly typical debut novel. There is considerable storytelling talent here, but Flournoy also succumbs to some of the temptations one often finds in freshman works.

"Flournoy is a talented writer with a gift for creating memorable characters.... At its best, THE TURNER HOUSE has moments of genuine tension, especially those involving the children’s fraught relations with their often-drunk father. There are vivid descriptions throughout."

Francis and Viola Turner, an African-American couple, raise 13 children in a house on Yarrow Street on Detroit’s East Side. The oldest, Cha-Cha --- a nickname for Charles --- was born in 1944; the youngest, Lelah, in 1967. Now, it’s 2008, and all 13 children are grown. Francis died long ago; Viola, elderly and frail after a series of strokes, lives with Cha-Cha and his deeply religious wife; and the children need to decide what to do about their childhood home. The house is vacant and in such disrepair that vandals were able to steal the garage right off the side of the building. Before this theft, the house was worth only $4,000, or about a tenth of the remaining mortgage.

The novel includes flashbacks of Francis and Viola’s early years together but focuses mostly on the present-day stories of three Turner children and the question of whether or not to sell the family property. Cha-Cha had a 30-year career as a truck driver for Chrysler. He has been plagued by haints --- apparitions --- first when he was a young man and again at age 64, when a vision appears on his way to Chicago. Lelah has been evicted from her apartment and struggles with a gambling addiction that complicates, among other things, her relationship with her 21-year-old daughter and her grandson. She moves into the Yarrow Street house, an arrangement she assumes will last for a while, especially when her siblings agree not to short-sell the property to get out of the mortgage. But Troy, a Detroit cop unhappy with his job, tries to sell the house illegally to his girlfriend of 15 years. When that plan fails, he schemes to trick Viola into giving him her fingerprints so that he can facilitate a sale without the family’s consent.

Like a lot of debut authors, Flournoy packs in more information about her characters than is necessary. She frequently stops the action to give us backstories that don’t further the plot. We didn’t need two pages on Cha-Cha’s therapist’s family history, or a paragraph on the hairstyling and jewelry of an Asian pawnshop broker we see only in passing. Flournoy’s habit of starting chapters with arresting openings that are different in tone from the rest of the book makes the novel feel at times like a series of short stories rather than an integrated whole. And the book has several unresolved plot lines, which is not a bad thing when the lack of resolution is satisfyingly ambiguous, but that’s not the case here.

Despite these missteps, Flournoy is a talented writer with a gift for creating memorable characters. The portraits of Cha-Cha and Lelah are nuanced and sympathetic. Viola is a great character, too. She has an attitude, but it’s charming and funny; one wishes she were more of a presence in the book. At its best, THE TURNER HOUSE has moments of genuine tension, especially those involving the children’s fraught relations with their often-drunk father. There are vivid descriptions throughout. Flournoy describes one character as having kneecaps that “looked like baked potatoes.” Cha-Cha drives 18-wheelers that have “gas-guzzlers stacked like toys in two rows” on them. Once Flournoy develops her voice more fully, she will be an exciting author to follow.