Kin
The instant New York Times bestseller
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
THE SPELLBINDING NEW NOVEL FROM THE WOMEN'S PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE
* 'This is Tayari Jones's very best work.' ANN PATCHETT, author of Tom Lake
* 'Kin is a masterpiece of a novel.' OPRAH WINFREY
* 'A future classic.' ROISIN O'DONNELL, author of Nesting
A Most Anticipated Book for 2026 according to the New York Times, New Statesman, Guardian, Independent, Financial Times and USA Today
A yearning for their missing mothers pulls Vernice and Annie apart. It will take a devastating tragedy to bring them back together.
Vernice and Annie are 'cradle friends', born days apart in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, both destined never to know their mothers. The girls are inseparable, bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood. But this is the American south in the 1950s. Black girls like Vernice and Annie have to fight for every opportunity they can, and neither one can build the future they hope for in Honeysuckle.
Gradually, inevitably, the girls drift apart. Vernice pursues her education; Annie is lured by the promise of a heady first love affair and a growing obsession with finding her mother. But her search pulls her even further into a world of danger that soon leaves her oldest friend battling to save her.
Tayari Jones returns with an exuberant, richly told story about mothers, daughters, and a lifelong friendship that is as dangerous as it is unbreakable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones (An American Marriage) delivers a triumphant novel of two motherless girls from rural Honeysuckle, La., who follow very different paths into adulthood. Vernice "Niecy" Davis is orphaned as an infant and raised reluctantly by her free-spirited aunt Irene, who dispenses such advice as "If you ever get a chance in life, grab you a preacher, but just temporarily. Don't fool around and end up being somebody's first lady." Before Niecy learns to talk, she befriends Annie Johnson, who's being raised by her grandmother after her "trifling" mother, Hattie Lee, left her at one month old. In Annie and Niecy's alternating narration, the women reflect on their abandonment—Niecy's in a permanent sense, as her father killed her mother and himself, while Annie always hopes that someday Hattie Lee will return and grow to love her. After high school, Niecy leaves for Spelman College in Atlanta, where her wealthy roommate, Joette, nicknames her "country mouse" and chastises her for spending so much time thinking about her "other girlfriend," Annie, who's been writing to Niecy about her torrid misadventures on the way to Memphis in search of Hattie Lee with her ex-boyfriend's cousin Bobo. Annie's and Niecy's paths continue to diverge, first when Niecy entertains a suitor at Spelman and later when Annie gets unexpectedly pregnant. Still, they remain the most important person to the other even as it feels like they're on "different sides of a waterfall," as Annie puts it in a letter. Throughout, Jones tells her protagonists' stories with grace, humor, and pathos. It's a tour de force.
