You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
W&N acquires new novel by McBride in three-way auction
W&N has acquired The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the new novel from author James McBride.
Alexa von Hirschberg, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in a three-way auction from Tom Dussel at PRH US. The novel will be published on 9th November 2023 in hardback and audiobook, and the e-book is available now.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store was published by Riverhead in the US in August. The novel is set chiefly in the 1930s, in a small-town community called Chicken Hill, populated by African Americans who have fled racial violence in the South and Jews who have escaped the pogroms in Eastern Europe.
It starts with a skeleton being found in a well and takes the reader back in time, revealing the secrets, hopes, desires of this disparate group of people who ultimately come together to save a deaf child.
McBride is the author of the New York Times-bestselling, Oprah’s Book Club selection and Barack Obama pick Deacon King Kong (Doubleday), the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird (Riverhead) and memoir The Colour of Water (Bloomsbury), among others. He is also a recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician.
Von Hirschberg said: “I’m not at all surprised that the reviews in the US are calling this a 21st century Great American Novel. I defy anyone not to fall in love with the people of Chicken Hill. McBride is a master storyteller. It is shocking that he’s not more well known here. It’s not just the depth of characterisation and the pitch-perfect dialogue, or the brilliantly conceived and executed plot, or the wry humour and scintillating social commentary. It’s the deep kindness and humanity that is woven in every sentence."
McBride said: “We are all the same. We shouldn’t allow those who profit from our differences to flourish. Our differences make us human, but our humanity binds us. My books reach for that binding force – love, family, tolerance, and humour. Those are binding forces. What can be better?”
