Nearly 60 years ago, a 14-year-old African-American boy named Emmett Till left Chicago for Mississippi. He traveled to a town called Money to visit family. Till was murdered there for allegedly flirting with a white woman.

The town of Money, Miss. is now the setting of a new novel by Bernice McFadden entitled “Gathering of Waters” (Akashic Books, $24.95). Set around the 1955 murder of Till, the book is “narrated” by Money, Miss., the scene of the crime and home for the book’s characters. Following her best-selling, award-winning novel “Glorious,” McFadden produces a fantastic historical novel featuring the spirit of Emmett Till.

“In her new novel, ‘Gathering of Waters,’ Bernice McFadden brings her own special vision to the unfortunate story of Emmett Till and his murder in Money, Miss.,” noted Lee Martin, author of “Break the Skin” and “The Bright Forever.” This moving and magical novel, which traces the generations leading up to and away from that horrible night in 1955, drew me in immediately and swept me along through its richly imagined world. I couldn't stop reading, caught up as I was in that enticing place between truth and fantasy, the here-and-now and the what-was, the living and the dead, the ugliness and the beauty, the hatred and the love. What a rich chorus of voices Bernice McFadden has fashioned from this place called Money.

“Gathering of Waters” is a truly deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Miss. — a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. That the town of Money is personified in this haunting story only helps in chronicling its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families. McFadden weaves a tale of Tass Hilson and Emmett Till, who were young and in love when Till was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit. Forty years later, after the death of her husband, Tass returns to Money, and fantasy takes flesh when Till’s spirit is finally released from the dank, dark waters of the Tallahatchie river. The two lovers are reunited, bringing the story to an enchanting and profound conclusion.

“Gathering of Waters” mines the truth about Money, Miss. as well as the town’s families, and threads their history over decades. The bare-bones realism — both disturbing and riveting — combined with a magical realm in which ghosts have the final say, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” In fact, McFadden’s sophomore novel, “The Warmest December,” was praised by the Nobel Prize-winning Morrison as “searing and expertly imagined.”

McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including the classics “Sugar” and is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the BCALA.

On Wednesday, Feb. 15, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., Art Sanctuary at 628 S. 16th St. will join the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program in celebrating the one year anniversary of the Albert M. Greenfield African-American Murals exhibit. The Albert M. Greenfield African-American Iconic Images Collection, curated in partnership with the African American Museum in Philadelphia, showcases murals throughout the city that uniquely capture the rich African-American experience in the Delaware Valley. The event includes McFadden reading, discussing, and signing her newest novel, “Gathering of Waters.” The event is free. McFadden’s books are available at major bookstores and online at Amazon.com.

Contact staff writer Bobbi Booker at (215) 893-5749 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .