Last Summer on State Street: A Novel

Written by Toya Wolfe

Narrated by Shayna Small

• PEN Open Book Award finalist
• Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award winner
• Stephen Curry Underrated Literati Book Club Pick

Named a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more!

“[A] powerful novel.... Tragic, hopeful, brimming with love, Wolfe’s debut is a remarkable achievement.”—New York Times Book Review

For fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Brit Bennett, a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.

Even when we lose it all, we find the strength to rebuild.

Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes. It’s the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence. But when Fe Fe welcomes a mysterious new friend, Tonya, into their fold, the dynamics shift, upending the lives of all four girls.

As their beloved neighborhood falls down around them, so too do their friendships and the structures of the four girls’ families. Fe Fe must make the painful decision of whom she can trust and whom she must let go. Decades later, as she remembers that fateful summer—just before her home was demolished, her life uprooted, and community forever changed—Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left.

Profound, reverent, and uplifting, Last Summer on State Street explores the risk of connection against the backdrop of racist institutions, the restorative power of knowing and claiming one’s own past, and those defining relationships which form the heartbeat of our lives. Interweaving moments of reckoning and sustaining grace, debut author Toya Wolfe has crafted an era-defining story of finding a home—both in one’s history and in one’s self. 

""Toya Wolfe is a storyteller of the highest order. Last Summer on State Street is a stunning debut.""—Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9780063209770

Toya Wolfe

Toya Wolfe grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago’s South Side. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Her writing has appeared in African Voices, Chicago Journal, Chicago Reader, Hair Trigger 27, and WarpLand. She is the recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston-Bessie Head Fiction Award, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Short Story Competition, and the Betty Shifflet/John Schultz Short Story Award. She currently resides in Chicago. Last Summer on State Street is her debut novel. 

Reviews for Last Summer on State Street

[sharonda · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good book! Almost finished in one day. I wish Tanya chatacter was developed more or even better she deserves her own story.

[nick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My dad went to DuSable high School. Nice to get a perspective of growing up in Robert Taylor versus what we think not living there. Don't judge a book by it's cover.
Enjoyed thinking about different landmarks in my hometown.

[Habibah Sulayman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Such an amazing story. A poignant memoir is so many Black girls from the inner city

[Julie Mishol · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Touching. The reader really gets to know these characters inside and out. Living in the Robert Taylor Homes, in an intimate portrayal of hope, despair, love and hate. a true slice of life memoir.

[Christina Campbell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written. You really get a well rounded view of each of the characters-their flaws, shortcoming, pain and redeeming qualities. It humanizes the stress, trauma, joys, hopes and experiences of living in a public housing and low income area as well as the tribulations of gentrification for those moved/removed. Really enjoyed, heartbreaking, heartwarming, profound.

Narrator does a beautiful job reading (for audiobook version)