That true-to-life history unfolds similarly in the book, with visceral recollections through Wolfe’s characters. In the case of the Robert Taylor Homes, the buildings were underfunded for decades and demolished from the late ‘90s until 2007. Last Summer on State Street is a tender yet unsparing chronicle of Black girlhood in Chicago, examining friendship, familial duty and criminalization as institutions around them fail.

Wolfe writes in her book that the Robert Taylor Homes, where she lived for 18 years, were ‘everyone’s and no one’s building.’ Chicago Sun-Times But when FeFe invites a new girl, Tonya, into the circle, their lives unravel in ways that will reverberate across the decades. Set in 1999, on the verge of the Homes’ demolition, the story follows 12-year-old FeFe Stevens and her closest friends - the loyal, church-going Precious and Stacia, a feisty misfit whose family runs the neighborhood gang - as they pass the days jumping rope. “In literature, we don’t always read about places like the Robert Taylor Homes,” she said. After the third time, she followed her instincts and turned the story into a novel. During her master’s program at Columbia College Chicago, she noticed she kept writing about the same group of girls in her assignments. In particular, Wolfe cited Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Richard Wright’s Native Son and the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks as inspiration.įor Wolfe, who lived the first 18 years of her life at the 4950 building depicted in the book, the story is personal.

By doing so, the 41-year-old joins a rich tradition of Chicago literati who document, brutally and precisely, what it’s like to inhabit a place and time that no longer exists. It’s this community in Bronzeville - at the time, the world’s largest public housing complex and now torn down - that Wolfe preserves for history by making it a character in her new book, debuting from a major publisher.

Toya wolfe last summer on state street