Going Back to Fetch It

Going Back to Fetch It is a dual-narrative novel that explores intergenerational trauma, ancestral memory, and the interconnected resilience of Black women. The story begins with Beezie, a young enslaved girl who knows only the confines of Canton's plantation. Though her world is defined by labor, violence, and confinement, Beezie holds onto her imagination, sensing that something more exists beyond the plantation's borders. Many generations later, Zyan Weatherall, accesses others' knowledge through sex as a means to fast track her success as an educator and CEO of an intentional Black density charter school in Milwaukee. While she is aware of the influence she has over others after she absorbs their memories, she doesn't realize the damaged people she leaves behind, gathering adults and even her students unto herself, using them to build and maintain the image of a detached successful savior rooted in her fear of abandonment and self-hatred. Going Back to Fetch It is a science fiction, intergenerational novel written in reverence to the great female authors who have influenced Linetta's literary ancestry: Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston. It asks urgent questions about the cost of success, the inheritance of trauma, and the power of memory to free those who come after.