We are chastised for being too strong, “the angry Black woman,” but conversely, we tend to be the most disrespected and maligned. Women in this society are stretched thin to be everything to everybody, and Black women in particular suffer the harshest rigors, whether it’s access to opportunity or economic parity with men. It’s only when the layers of her mask are peeled away that she is finally free to be what she wanted to be all along-free and accepted for who she really is. She wears a mask of expensive clothes and educational pedigree to cover the residual pain and trauma from an earlier period in her life. Ellice, for all her issues, is like a lot of real women in the world. Women who are smart, beautiful, strong, and hopelessly flawed. Like all the women in the book, Ellice is an amalgam of women I’ve known or met in my life. Tell us a bit about Ellice Littlejohn-how did you conjure her up? That incident stayed with me for a long time and served as the motivating idea for the theme of family that I explored in the book-specifically, who do we call family and why? There was nothing sinister about the death, but I was mortified by how quickly everyone went back to normal after the person died. Also, I once worked for an organization where company management considered its employees “family.” Someone in my department died unexpectedly. First, my own lived experiences working in toxic offices where management underestimated the value that women and people of color can bring to the workplace. There were a couple things that inspired me to write this book. Please tell us about the genesis of the story-what prompted it? In this interview with The Big Thrill, Morris talks more about her debut and what readers can expect from her next.
This is the story of a woman who overcomes nearly insurmountable tragedy to forge a new life and protect the people she loves. Morris says that, despite the body count, this book is really about family-the family we choose and the family that chooses us.
The novel centers around Ellice Littlejohn, a layered character that must confront the terrors of her past-all the dirty little secrets she kept from even her closest friends-and survive while trying to save her career. Morris is an accomplished lawyer, but ALL HER LITTLE SECRETS is her first foray into fiction-and what a splash she makes.
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