An Instant New York Times Best Seller / An Oprah’s Book Club Pick

President Obama’s Summer 2021 Reading List 

Winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Longlisted for the 2022 Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, “a miraculous debut” (Washington Post)​ and “a towering achievement of imagination” (CBS This Morning)about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever – from “a storyteller with bountiful insight and assurance” (Kirkus)

A Best Book of the Year: Oprah Daily, NPR, Washington Post, Time, Smithsonian, Boston Globe, Chicago Public Library, BookBrowse, and the Oregonian
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
A July Indie Next Pick

In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry – freed by the Emancipation Proclamation – seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys.