Sweeping across fifty years of family, friendship, betrayal and reconciliation, What You Owe Me is Bebe Moore Campbell’s most ambitious achievement in storytelling. When Hosanna Clark—a hotel maid in post-World War II Los Angeles—first meets her new co-worker, Holocaust survivor Gilda Rosenstein, she is shocked to see a white woman in a situation so like her own. They quickly become friends, then business partners. But when their cosmetics company meets with unprecedented success, Gilda disappears with the profits—and leaves behind an emotional debt that grows with time, in the hearts and souls of generations to come…
“Nothing less than brilliant.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
“[A] sympathetic exploration of race, family and the meaning of success…full of hope.” —The Washington Post Book World
“Campbell has ultimately written a novel about forgiveness and redemption…wonderful.” —Los Angeles Times
“Campbell grippingly explores the emotional and economic bond between Hosanna, a young African-American woman, and Gilda, a Jewish woman who arrives in America after having been imprisoned in a concentration camp…contains sharp observations about race [and] characters who seem as real as your next-door neighbor.”—The Boston Globe
“A riveting tale…What You Owe Me shines…fresh…fiery…[a] fearless, unwavering look at human relationships stirred by racial dynamics.”—The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
