Why read Sweetbitter?

Book cover of Sweetbitter

Book description

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

Gibbons's first novel takes place in east Texas in 1910 during the time of white rule-not by law but by lynch mob. Amid the suffocating racism and fear, half-Choctaw, half-white Reuben Sweetbitter and Martha Clarke, a white woman, fall in love. Forbidden to be…

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Literary fiction

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Why read it?

1 author picked Sweetbitter as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Lawrence Lipking

Author

This is a poet's novel, but it plunges me into a world that is all too real; East Texas a century ago, and at the same time the problems of identity and prejudice and cruelty that still haunt us today.

It is also a moving love story. Half Choctaw, half white, the conflicted hero finds the woman of his dreams; but she is white, and they must flee a lynching. Revised and republished, this book combines delicate psychological and historical insights with searing suspense.

From Lawrence's 3 favorite reads in 2023.