On Borrowed Wings - Tapa dura

"In Chandra Prasad's compelling debut novel, Adele Pietra, a poor yet ambitious girl from a Connecticut granite quarry town in the 1930s, assumes the identity of her deceased brother and attends Yale University. Throughout this page turner, Adele faces the normal challenges of freshman year that any undergraduate would: meeting buddies, falling in love, keeping up with schoolwork; except she also carries the burden of keeping her true identity concealed. Prasad develops each character beautifully and we soon begin to think of the intrepid heroine's friends as our own. This coming of age story is a great read and I look forward to reading more of the writer's work in the future." -- Melissa Kagan, "Lifetime TV"

Adele Pietra has heard her mother say that her destiny is carved in the same brilliantly hued granite her father and brother cleave from the Stony Creek mine - she is to marry a quarryman. But when Adele's brother, Charles, dies unexpectedly, Adele sees the chance to change her life. Enrolling at Yale as Charles, Adele assumes his identity - and gender - as a way to leave behind her mother's expectations and the limitations of her small town. Hair chopped and chest bound, Adele falls in naturally with a lively crew of undergraduate boys: the Jewish Harry Persky with his slick Manhattan know-how, the quiet and mysterious legacy student Phineas, and the lanky but charismatic Wick. Through her work with a eugenics professor and her friendship with a local Italian family, Adele confronts her class and ethnicity as never before, all the while fearing that both her crush on Wick and her mother's well-meaning interventions will put an end to her delicate masquerade. Part social history, part coming-of-age story, On Borrowed Wings pairs a perennially intriguing theme with a perfectly rendered setting to create an unforgettable and auspicious debut novel.