When The Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris

I put this book on my library hold list as part of a Goodreads challenge fulfillment for a debut book--I ended up reading something else, but had this on my shelf and I am glad I read it. There are not that many books that get on my radar where a character struggles with gender identity. The book opens on the eve of a wedding: Davis, a Black violist, is about to marry his boyfriend, Everett, the son of a close-knit white family whose exuberance and easy camaraderie permeate the air they breathe. Davis has been estranged from his father, a reverend, since he fled his Ohio hometown for New York and has since mostly fallen out with his sister as well. He’s focused on his career in classical music and his relationship with Everett. He has no plans to revisit his traumatic past or his fraught family relationships, until his father’s death forces him to confront everything he’s left behind. Complicated relationships lead to complicated grief, a truism born out in this story as well. Davis is struggling with his unresolved relationship with his father, but he is also struggling with his feelings of being female, and the two are enmeshed. He is also very avoidant of all of this--something that feels very real, but is also kind of annoying in fiction--but does eventually put all the pieces together and moves forward.