If I Survive You

(Hardback)

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LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

An absolute delight to read Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People
'A compelling hurricane of a book' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House

A major debut that follows a Jamaican family in Miami navigating recession, racism and Hurricane Andrew.

1979. Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But they soon learn that the welcome in America will be far from warm.

Trelawny, their youngest son, comes of age in a society which regards him with suspicion and confusion, greeting him with the puzzled question What are you

Their eldest son Delanos longing for a better future for his own children is equalled only by his recklessness in trying to secure it.

As both brothers navigate the obstacles littered in their path an unreliable father, racism, a financial crisis and Hurricane Andrew they find themselves pitted against one another. Will their rivalry be the thing that finally tears their family apart

The thrilling linked stories in Jonathan Escofferys If I Survive You pulse with inimitable style, heart and barbed humour while unravelling what it means to carve out an existence between cultures, homes and pay checks. They announce Escoffery as a chronicler of life at its most gruesome and hopeful.

A debut so brilliant it stopped me in my tracks An astonishing, compassionate entrance to the literary scene i Newspaper

Astonishingly compact and engaging a dazzling mirror held up to our identity-obsessed time Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde

'A much needed new voice Percival Everett, Booker shortlisted author of The Trees

'A powerful new writer Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby

A most anticipated Book of 2023 in AnOther Magazine, Huffington Post UK and i Newspaper

Reviews

'Its riches are plentiful Escofferys prose regularly stopped me in my tracks [an] astonishing, compassionate entrance to the literary scene' i Newspaper

'A ravishing dbut The book feels thrillingly free' New Yorker

A gifted, sure-footed storyteller a disarming, irreverent sense of humor makes me eager to read him for a long time to come New York Times

Exposes uncomfortable social truths with fine details, wit and dazzling verbal versatility Los Angeles Times

I highly recommend this debutastonishingly compact and engaging fiction, and a dazzling mirror held up to our identity-obsessed time Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde

Its rare for a story collection to break out of the gate with as much buzz as Escofferys debut the author exposes uncomfortable social truths with fine details, wit and dazzling verbal versatility Los Angeles Times

Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory and like nothing you've read before Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

'This I adore Sumptuous and astute, excellent on the humiliations of familial and societal experience, triumphant in its spirited retaliation. An absolute delight' Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People

'Connected short stories that reads like a novel, that reads like real life, that reads like fiction written at the highest level' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House

An electrifying, enthralling debut about identity and belonging Spectacular Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun

A welcome reminder of what fiction can do Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind

Brilliant wit, real heart and electric humour Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black

Superb stories about identity, family and place A much needed new voice Percival Everett author of Erasure

Author Bio

Jonathan Escoffery is the recipient of the 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and the 2020 ASME Award for Fiction. His fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, AGNI, Passages North, Zyzzyva, and Electric Literature, and has been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing. He received his MFA from the University of Minnesota, is a PhD fellow in the University of Southern California's PhD in Creative Writing and Literature Program, and in 2021 was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University.