Join in book conversation with Natalie Baszile on “Friends and Family.”
BOOK CONVERSATION DETAILS
10/6/2026 at 7:00pm
Kepler’s In conversation with Julia Scheeres
1010 EL CAMINO REAL
MENLO PARK, CA 94025-4349
About the Author:
Natalie Baszile is a writer and filmmaker. Her debut novel, Queen Sugar, was an NAACP Image Award nominee and inspired the acclaimed television series coproduced by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey. Her nonfiction includes the book We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy and has appeared in National Geographic; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Bitter Southerner; and numerous anthologies. A native Californian, Baszile has Southern roots stemming from Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the Book:
From the author of Queen Sugar, a piercing examination of friendship and loyalty as two best friends find themselves at odds over their beliefs on race, identity and allyship, especially when it comes to their teenage children
Babs and Nora became friends thanks to their kids. Now, the desire to protect their children might tear them apart.
Babs and Nora have spent a decade’s worth of morning walks sharing family secrets, local drama, and advice—everything from tips on lingerie choices to Babs’s suggestions to Nora, a white woman, on how to raise Nathan, her adopted Black son.
But their worlds are turned upside down when the cops are called on their kids while they’re home alone, leading to a traumatic police encounter for Nathan. In the aftermath, Babs and Nora find themselves divided as never before, and Nathan looks for refuge with Babs and her family, where, unlike in his own home, race, identity, and culture are always up for discussion. Babs can see that Nathan is a young Black man without community trying to find himself. Torn between respecting Nora’s boundaries and embodying the values so important to her own family, Babs will make a choice that will shape their lives forever.
Set in a tight-knit enclave in the Bay Area, Friends and Family is an eye-opening exploration of friendship and privilege, race and community, and what it means to truly be a good friend and ally.
