*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*
‘Isaac's Song is the lullaby we all need and the healing balm for generations to come.’ —JOYCE WHITE,author of Ecology, Spirituality, and Cosmology in Edwidge Danticat
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
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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
*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*
‘Isaac's Song is the lullaby we all need and the healing balm for generations to come.’ —JOYCE WHITE,author of Ecology, Spirituality, and Cosmology in Edwidge Danticat
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
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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Isaac's Song is an absolutely beautiful book. It's a beautiful song of generational pain and love, a novel that is thrumming with truth and life." - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
"As Isaac's story unfolds, his song moves from its roots in pain, fury, and yearning and leads him toward knowledge, forgiveness, and a love of self that liberates as it lifts. This book is balm and tonic, impetus and light." - Jabari Asim
"A heartbreaking journey that grips and holds you to the bitter end like a weighted blanket, reminding me of the lyrics from a gospel song, 'We Fall Down but We Get Up, ' and try again." - Sanderia Faye
"Isaac's Song is a beautiful, all-consuming novel about the complex relationships between fathers and queer sons, loss, grief, identity, friendship and love. I will read anything Black writes." - De'Shawn Charles Winslow
"As Isaac's story unfolds, his song moves from its roots in pain, fury, and yearning and leads him toward knowledge, forgiveness, and a love of self that liberates as it lifts. This book is balm and tonic, impetus and light." - Jabari Asim
"A heartbreaking journey that grips and holds you to the bitter end like a weighted blanket, reminding me of the lyrics from a gospel song, 'We Fall Down but We Get Up, ' and try again." - Sanderia Faye
"Isaac's Song is a beautiful, all-consuming novel about the complex relationships between fathers and queer sons, loss, grief, identity, friendship and love. I will read anything Black writes." - De'Shawn Charles Winslow
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