Vivian is a formidable matriarch, raising her three daughters to fulfil their potential as jazz singers. She may have compromised her own ambitions when she was forced to flee racist violence in her home state of Louisiana, but she dreams of a bigger life for their daughters.
Talented, hardworking and driven by their uncompromising mother, Ruth Esther and Chloe find stardom as The Salvations. But somewhere between rehearsals on the rooftop and weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls become women – women with hopes and plans of their own. Vivian has always maintained impeccable control. Now, she must confront changes in The Salvations, in the San Francisco neighbourhood she has made her home, and even in her own family.
Warm, gripping, and thrumming with the music of jazz era San Francisco, On the Rooftop is a beautiful novel about family and ambition, sisterhood and the strength it takes to forge a life of one's own.
