I loved the lyrical, lush language and deep characterization in this well-crafted novel and was wholly immersed into the culture and ways of the early colonial period. The novel is very well researched and thoughtful as it ruminates on sexuality and religion.
To the outside world, Reverend Nathaniel Whitfield and his family stand as godly pillars of their small-town community in Puritan New England. One disciple, Dr Arthur Lyman, discovers in the minister's words a love so captivating it transcends language.
As the bond between the two men grows more and more passionate, their wives and children must contend with a tangled web of secrets, lies and judgments that threatens to destroy them in this world and the next.
Set during the turbulent historical upheavals that shaped America, All the World Beside reveals the very human lives just beneath the surface of…
The stories invited me to look at the lives of black American Muslim women, a group I knew little about. The writing is very strong and the characterizations familiar, even though the situations are not commonly known.
Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction
A groundbreaking debut collection portraying the lived experiences of Black Muslims grappling with faith, family, and freedom in America.
In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born.
Written by a prize-winning husband and wife poets who undertake the building of a glass cabin in rural Alabama, these poems celebrate the beauty of nature, the love of art-making and the joy of relationships. It is as much a spiritual journey as a story of building a unique house.
GLASS CABIN CHRONICLES the thirteen years Tina Mozelle Braziel and James Braziel spent building their home out of secondhand tin, tornado-snapped power poles, and church glass on a waterless ridge in rural Alabama. Their alternating voices support one another like parts of their cabin-every board needs its nail, every window needs its frame. These poems explore the work it takes to measure cuts for stairs, to haul water-one ton at a time-up the side of the mountain, and to write. It is also a meditation on hope, on frustration, and their place in the wilder parts of the world.
An engrossing novel based on the true story of the 1946 lynching of two black couples in Georgia
Inspired by true events, The Vain Conversation reflects on the 1946 lynching of two black couples in Georgia from the perspectives of three characters-Bertrand Johnson, one of the victims; Noland Jacks, a presumed perpetrator; and Lonnie Henson, a witness to the murders as a ten-year-old boy. Lonnie's inexplicable feelings of culpability drive him in a search for meaning that takes him around the world and ultimately back to Georgia, where he must confront Jacks and his own demons, with the hopes that doing so will free him from the grip of the past.
In The Vain Conversation, Anthony Grooms seeks to advance the national dialogue on race relations. With complexity, satire, and sometimes levity, he explores what it means to redeem, as well as to be redeemed, when dealing with America's race violence, and he speaks to the broader issues of oppression and violence everywhere.
A foreword is provided by American poet, painter, and novelist Clarence Major. An afterword is written by T. Geronimo Johnson, the bestselling author of Welcome to Braggsville and Hold It 'Til It Hurts.
