Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf)
Gifty, a PhD candidate in neuroscience, lost her brother to a heroin overdose, and her mother is depressed and suicidal. Studying reward-seeking behavior in mice, Gifty, a Ghanian immigrant raised in the South, turns to science to make sense of her family’s suffering. But she also finds herself drawn to the evangelical faith of her childhood. Gyasi weaves together the complicated threads of depression, addiction, and grief with a search for truth in science and religion. (Available now.)
A Measure of Belonging Edited by Cinelle Barnes (Hub City Press)
In this new and timely essay collection, Cinelle Barnes brings together 21 writers of color to share their experiences of the new American South. Featuring essays from Kiese Laymon, Osayi Endolyn, Toni Jensen, Nashville’s own Tiana Clark and more, each piece speaks to the question of Who is welcome? (Available now.)
Pew by Catherine Lacey (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
When the church members in a small, unnamed Southern town show up for service, they’re surprised to find a genderless and racially ambiguous person asleep on a pew. One family takes in the stranger and calls them Pew. Their arrival sets off a wave of curiosity and generosity soon replaced by uncertainty, fear, and suspicion. Who is Pew? Why are they here? Lacey’s latest novel investigates humans’ desire to categorize one another even when it’s dangerously inaccurate. (Available now.)
Dear Ann by Bobbie Ann Mason (Harper)
Ann Workman, a naïve young woman from Kentucky, wants to find love. So, when she meets Jimmy, an upper-middle-class man from the Chicago suburbs, things look promising. But the Vietnam War is on the horizon, and life in the U.S. suddenly becomes more complicated. Years later, in the midst of a life crisis, Ann looks back on this time in her life—and her obsession with Jimmy—and imagines making different choices. (Available now.)