Jonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, originally published in 1934, tells the story of John Buddy Pearson, "a living exultation" of a young man who loves too many women for his own good. Lucy, his long-suffering wife, is his true love, but there's also Mehaley and Big 'Oman, as well as the scheming Hattie, who conjures hoodoo spells to ensure his attentions. Even after becoming the popular pastor of Zion Hope, where his sermons and...

A novel about black Americans in Florida that centers on the life of Janie and her three marriages.

"Ephram Jenkins has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, "the kind of pretty it hurt to look at, " is already quite damaged, but Ephram is forcibly drawn to her. As soon as she becomes a young woman and has any power of her own, Ruby flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York City. Years later, when a funeral forces her to return...

Niles has just returned from eight years of serving his country as a Special Forces sniper. He's looking forward to a consulting job with Dynamic Defense and spending time with his family, including his bi-polar mother, Lorna, and his hard-drinking uncle, Willie. What Niles doesn't know is that Dynamic Defense is actually a CIA front. He's not interested in joining them, but they won't take no for an answer. Bridget St. John is one of the most beautiful...

Ed Nelson is struggling to recover from the devastating loss of his wife to cancer. As Ed's depression begins to deepen, his older brother steps in to help him make the critical changes necessary to bring him back from the brink. Into this new environment walks Tanya, a woman half his age, who immediately reminds him of his late wife. Ed and Tanya develop an unlikely friendship, but as things quickly evolve into something more intimate, he must now...

Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child--the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment--weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest...

"The Mothers meets An American Marriage in this dazzling debut novel about mothers and daughters, identity and family, and how the relationships that sustain you can also be the ones that consume you. The Butler family has had their share of trials. As sisters, Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest. But nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned...

"The daughter of a prostitute mother and an alcoholic father, Maggie Franklin knew her only way out was to marry someone upstanding and church-going. Someone like Hubert Wiggins, the most eligible man in Lexington, Alabama--and the son of its most revered preacher. Proper and prosperous, Hubert is glad to finally have a wife, even one with Maggie's background. For Hubert has a secret he desperately needs to stay hidden. And Maggie's unexpected charm,...

After his parents send him to a prestigious private school known for its academics, Jordan Banks finds himself torn between two worlds.

"A stunning collection of fiction, diary entries, screenplays and scripts by the brilliant African-American artist and filmmaker"--