Isaac's Song
A Novel
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
*A Washington Post Best Book of January 2025*
*A Southern Review of Books Best Southern Book of January 2025*
*A Book Riot 13 of the Best New Queer Books Out in January 2025*
*A Book of the Month Pick for January 2025*
*From the Viral Clark Atlanta University Commencement Speaker*
*From the Georgia Author of the Year Award Winner*
"Black beautifully chronicles one man's heroic quest to find the source of his generational trauma, a cure for his pain, and ultimately, himself."—Michael Harriot, New York Times bestselling author of Black AF History
The beloved author of Don’t Cry for Me and Perfect Peace returns with a poignant, emotionally exuberant novel about a young queer Black man finding his voice in 1980s Chicago—a novel of family, forgiveness and perseverance, for fans of The Great Believers and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Isaac is at a crossroads in his young life. Growing up in Missouri, the son of a caustic, hard-driving father, he was conditioned to suppress his artistic pursuits and physical desires. But now, in late ’80s Chicago, Isaac has finally carved out a life of his own and built up the courage to seek out a community. Yet just as he begins to embrace who he is, two social catalysts—the AIDS crisis and Rodney King’s attack—collectively extinguish his hard-earned joy.
At a therapist’s encouragement, Isaac begins to write down his story. As he taps into his creative energy, he commences a journey back to his family, his ancestral home in Arkansas and the inherited trauma of the past. But a surprise discovery will either unlock the truths he’s seeking or threaten to derail the life he’s fought so hard to claim.
Poignant, sweeping, and luminously told, Isaac's Song is a return to the beloved characters of Don’t Cry for Me and a high-water mark in the career of an award-winning author.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Black (Don't Cry for Me) offers a moving chronicle of a grieving queer Black man reflecting on growing up in Chicago. Having endured his mother's death years earlier and now, in the 2000s, the loss of his father, from whom he was estranged, Isaac finds himself at 35 unfocused and coping poorly. A therapist encourages him to write down his life story as a means to move forward. Retracing his youth in the 1980s, when he cowered from his abusive and homophobic father and dealt with his mother's alcoholism, Isaac makes peace with his regrets and rejects the shame he internalized over his sexuality. He then turns to his college years, when he experimented with dating men, and considers how after graduation, while reeling from the Rodney King beating and the AIDS epidemic, a degree couldn't save him from the pain of racism and the danger of being queer. The writing is lyrical (Isaac adored the "syrupy cadence" of his mother's voice), and the character portrait takes on greater dimension as Isaac struggles with forgiving his late father. The author's fans will love this tale of hard-won self-acceptance.
