We're meeting to discuss The Heirs by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, August 25 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Mystery/Thriller Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT THE HEIRS

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Long-listed for the Booker Prize

A radiant, intimate novel of the longing that blooms between two boys over the course of one summer―about family, desire, and what we inherit.

When his grandfather dies, Jay travels south with his family to the property they’ve inherited, a once-flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought.

Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one.

Out in the fields, and on the streets into town, the charge between the boys intensifies. Inside the house, the other family members begin to confront their own secrets and regrets. Jack is a professor at a struggling local college whose failures might have begun when he married his student, Sui Ching. Sui Ching does her best to keep the family together, though she too wonders what her life could have been. And Fong, the manager, refuses to look at what is: at Chuan, at the land, at the global forces that threaten to render his whole life obsolete.

At once sweeping and compressed, Tash Aw’s The South is a family novel of change and desire―a story of what happens when public and private lives collide, told with uncommon grace and beauty.

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Challenges narrow perceptions of Blackness as both an identity and lived reality to understand the diversity of what it means to be Black in the US and around the world

What exactly is Blackness and what does it mean to be Black?
Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness?
Who determines who is Black and who is not?
Who’s Black, who’s not, and who cares?

In the United States, a Black person has come to be defined as any person with any known Black ancestry. Statutorily referred to as “the rule of hypodescent,” this definition of Blackness is more popularly known as the “one-drop rule,” meaning that a person with any trace of Black ancestry, however small or (in)visible, cannot be considered White. A method of social order that began almost immediately after the arrival of enslaved Africans in America, by 1910 it was the law in almost all southern states. At a time when the one-drop rule functioned to protect and preserve White racial purity, Blackness was both a matter of biology and the law. One was either Black or White. Period. Has the social and political landscape changed one hundred years later?

One Drop explores the extent to which historical definitions of race continue to shape contemporary racial identities and lived experiences of racial difference. Featuring the perspectives of 60 contributors representing 25 countries and combining candid narratives with striking portraiture, this book provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. Although contributors use varying terms to self-identify, they all see themselves as part of the larger racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to as Black. They have all had their identity called into question simply because they do not fit neatly into the stereotypical “Black box”—dark skin, “kinky” hair, broad nose, full lips, etc. Most have been asked “What are you?” or the more politically correct “Where are you from?” throughout their lives. It is through contributors’ lived experiences with and lived imaginings of Black identity that we can visualize multiple possibilities for Blackness.

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A gripping, elegant debut novel about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy, a friend’s mysterious death and his own arrest, from an electrifying new voice.

An arrest for cocaine possession on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him, but his race does not.

It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle—as well as lingering questions around how well he really knew his closest friend. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, only to buckle under the weight of expectations from his family of doctors and lawyers and their history in America. But when Smith returns to New York, it’s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life—drawn back into the city’s underworld, where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.

Smith goes on a dizzying journey through the nightlife circuit, anonymous recovery rooms, Atlanta’s Black society set, police investigations and courtroom dramas, and a circle of friends coming of age in a new era. Great Black Hope is a propulsive, glittering story about what it means to exist between worlds, to be upwardly mobile yet spiraling downward, and how to find a way back to hope.

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A perfect book club read for those who love morally gray women

In a village in rural Pakistan, Tara is watching and waiting. The smell of dung and dust hangs over her world. She is desperate to leave her petty life in the village and escape the iron grip of her violent, unpredictable brother.

Marrying a middle-class accountant allows her to escape to the capital, but she soon finds that life as a respectable housewife is not enough. She wants what the rich mothers at her children’s school have. Her desire for wealth and freedom becomes an obsession—one for which she’ll push her marriage and herself to the brink. When her brother comes back into her life, dragging the specter of all she’s escaped, Tara must decide if there are any lines she won’t cross to live the life she deserves.

Set against a hypnotic, oppressive backdrop of political violence and natural disaster, A Splintering traces the class struggle of a woman stuck between province and metropolis, between motherhood and ambition. Disquieting and utterly gripping, it is an extraordinary achievement by Dur e Aziz Amna, an exploration of a complex and unforgettable character who will risk everything to carve out a life of her own.

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Five female Afghan poets wield language to combat the loneliness, absurdity, and claustrophobia of life in a war-torn country and its diaspora. There are “hypnotic, long beards” tangled with mass extinctions; hateful men burning grapevines; black blindfolds; jinn in chadors; and condoms advertised every eight minutes on TV. Interspersing these are tender moments: one poet describes brushing her daughter’s hair, while another imagines a tree growing at the center of a room, undisturbed by the bombs outside. In the wake of the Taliban’s escalating war on Afghan women’s rights, Hair on Fire is a blazing tribute to a group of exceptional poetesses and a reminder of what we lose when voices are silenced.

We're meeting to discuss Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, July 21 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Horror Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT BLOOD SLAVES

For readers of Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, this ingenious reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery blends alternate history with supernatural horror, as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom, and together, they lead an army of enslaved people in a cinematically blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.

What if nobody ever freed the slaves…because they freed themselves – 150 years before the Civil War?

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.

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Night of the Living Queers is a YA horror anthology that explores a night when anything is possible exclusively featuring queer authors of color putting fresh spins on classic horror tropes and tales.

No matter its name or occasion, Halloween is more than a Hallmark holiday, it’s a symbol of transformation. NIGHT OF THE LIVING QUEERS is a YA horror anthology that explores how Halloween can be more than just candies and frights, but a night where anything is possible. Each short story will be told through the lens of a different BIPOC teen and the Halloween night that changes their lives forever. Creative, creepy, and queer, this collection will bring fresh terror, heart, and humor to young adult literature.

Contributors include editors Alex Brown and Shelly Page, Kalynn Bayron, Ryan Douglass, Sara Farizan, Maya Gittelman, Kosoko Jackson, Em Liu, Vanessa Montalban, Ayida Shonibar, Tara Sim, Trang Thanh Tran, and Rebecca Kim Wells.

We're meeting to discuss Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Thursday, Septembern 24 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Fiction Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT TUMBLING

“Warm and intimate. . . . An accomplished novel, with sharply drawn characters, exuberant prose, plenty of period detail and a wise, forgiving outlook on family life.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review

Tumbling is the beloved bestselling debut novel that launched the luminous career of Diane McKinney Whetstone, critically acclaimed author of Tempest Rising, Blues Dancing, Leaving Cecil Street, and Trading Dreams at Midnight. Writing in a style as accessible as Terry McMillan, yet with the literary touches of Toni Morrison, McKinney Whetstone’s Tumbling is a poignant, exquisitely rendered story of the ties that bind us and the secrets that keep us apart.

Noon and Herbie are deeply in love and living in a tightly knit African American neighborhood in South Philadelphia during the 1940s. But their marriage remains unconsummated because of a horrible incident in Noon's past, so each seeks comfort elsewhere: Noon in the warm acceptance of the neighborhood church; Herbie in the arms of Ethel, a jazz singer. Then one day an infant girl is left on their doorstep, and later Ethel blesses them with her five-year-old niece. Suddenly and unexpectedly a family, Herbie, Noon, and their two girls draw closer—until an outside threat reawakens a fire in Noon, causing her to rise up and fight to hold her family and her community together.