Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Kin,' by Tayari Jones

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On this week's episode, our monthly book club discussion. This time, our host MJ Franklin leads a conversation about Kin, the wonderful new novel from Tyre Jones, MJ Overview. Hello, and welcome to another book club episode of the book review. My name is MJ Franklin, I'm an editor here at the New York Times book review.

And this week for a book club, we're chatting about Kin by Tyre Jones. I'm just gonna lay my cards out on the table and say very early. I love this book. I love this book a lot, and I've been sitting on this book for a while because as editors we get to read early copies of things, and I've just been so eager to talk about this

with other readers. You can check me on that in January, we published a winter books preview episode, and I

“mentioned how much I love this book there, but I want to say, I'm not alone in my enthusiasm.”

This book, Tyre Jones's fifth was an instant New York Times bestseller. It was an open book club pick two, it received a spade of re-reviews, it feels like it's hidden season. A lot of us are reading it, and now, three of us are talking about it. I am joined in the studio by a panel of my esteemed colleagues.

First with us is Liz Egan, Hi Liz, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Liz, you are gonna be kind of in the hot seed as an expert because you profiled Tyre Jones correct? I did, yes. Tell us what does that mean?

Well, I flew to Atlanta for the first time ever, and I joined Tyre Jones at a dinner for booksellers, and then I went to her house the next day, and interviewed her there for about two hours, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. So you really got the story behind the story. I did.

I did. So I'm excited to hear your expertise, and it also just your opinions on the book. Also with us is Lauren Christensen, Hi Lauren. Hi. Thanks for having me.

Welcome back. It's been a while. Thank you. Yes, I'm very excited to talk about this. So that's our great panel of readers talking about this book.

But before we dig in, I have my typical admin notes.

First, there will be spoilers in this episode.

We want to keep this book club episode accessible. This book just came out. So the first half of this discussion will be spoiler light. We're going to set up the book, so we're going to reveal some basic things. But we're going to keep the big review.

So the second half of the episode, which will be spoiler filled. So that's admin number one. admin note number two is that at the end of the episode, we will reveal our April book club book. So stay with us to the end to find out what we're reading next.

That, let's dive in to get started.

“Lauren, in the hot seat, can you give us a brief set up on Ken?”

What is this book? Yes. So again, I will be trying to keep this as light on spoilers as possible. But just to set up what the book is that we're talking about. So this is, as you said, Terry Jones is fifth novel.

Her most recent book was American Marriage. This one is about two young women named Vinice and Annie. Denise goes by the nickname, Nisi. They've been friends from their infancy and grew up together in small town Louisiana in the 1950s and 60s.

Both girls are motherless. Vanessa's mother was murdered and Annie's abandoned her to be raised by her grandmother. This fact really shapes their paths over the ensuing decades, as well as their ongoing closeness. Jones tells the story through their alternating perspectives.

Nisi makes her way to Spellman and meanwhile Annie runs away from home to travel with us or band of unemployed teenagers. She goes up to Memphis, which is where she is told her mother lives. And so she spends most of the book longing to see her mother again, to meet her mother, even though by all accounts her mother does not want to be found.

Though the narrators actually spend most of the book apart, they remain really intimately connected and each other's thoughts and also in letters, which are a particular gift of this book, is the epistolary relationship between them until a tragic circumstance draws

them back into each other's presence later on, which we will discuss for the second half

of this episode. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Love that teaser. Liz, is there anything that you would add? Well, just building off the epistolary part of this book, I will begin by saying that

and she belongs to a penpal society, and she exchanges letters with strangers, and as well as people who are in her life, I keep hoping she might write me a letter or maybe I'll write her a letter, but yes, that was a big part of her backstory on this book. I love that, and Teari, if you're listening, you've received the call, but Liz, can you

“give us a little bit more background about who Teari Jones is?”

As Lauren mentioned, this is Teari Jones's fifth novel, and her fourth novel was her big breakout. The novel she had written before that, which all either take place in or touch on Atlanta, were moderately successful, but not huge breakout hits. There was actually a point in her career where her books were out of print and with

the help of Judy Bloom, who made a very crucial introduction of Teari to the publisher

of Algonquin Books, and I was able to get her career back off the ground. But after that, for two at his introduction to an editor named Elizabeth Charlotte at Algonquin Books, Teari wrote her fourth novel, which was called an American Marriage, it came out in 2018. It was an Oprah pick. It sold over 1 million copies. It was on the best seller list for

more than six months, and when we here at the book review did a project a while back where we asked readers to weigh in on the best books of the 21st century so far, an American marriage appeared on the list. So it was a huge success, and as anyone who was a writer would know, it was a stressful book for her to follow up on. So in the years leading up to the publication of an American Marriage, Teari had been living in various cities across the country.

She was teaching in New Jersey. She taught in Texas. She taught in Tennessee, and once she landed this big fish with an American marriage, the one thing she really wanted to do was move back to Atlanta to be closer to her parents. And she went back there with the idea of writing a book about a woman who returned to Atlanta and moves to a gentrifying neighborhood. And that was where that book was going to begin. And she worked on it, and she worked

on it, and it was not coming into focus. And these two girls came into her head. They

became NEC and Annie. And at first, as Teari told it to me, she thought that these girls

were the grandparents of the characters she was writing about in this fledgling follow-up to an American marriage that ended up not getting off the ground. Those voices in her head became louder and louder, and she became more and more transfixed by their stories. And those girls are the ones who form the backbone of kin.

“So that's how this book came to be, but before we dive in, are there any perennial themes”

that Teari is constantly explorers throughout her work? Are there any commonalities between our books or anything that you associate, Teari Jones with? Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta. Atlanta is, it's become very trendy to say that a city is a character in a book, but it really is a character in Teari Jones's books. And I mentioned that I went to this booksellers dinner when I was in Atlanta. And I was so glad that I went down a day

early to join this dinner because it was mostly booksellers from Atlanta. And the pride in the room before this book even came out was, it was palpable. And she had a story about

each book store. This was the bookseller where she had the launch of her first book. This was

the book store where she was having the launch of kin. And she could trace the story of her career through through Atlanta. And that is a major through line in all of her novels. That sounds so special. Just like that, I concept of roots and homecoming and all through

“books. That's why we're here. Yes. So that's our set up of who Teari Jones is. And that's”

our set up of what kin is. And now I want to dive into our top love with thought. So just give me a vibe check. What do you think of kin? Love it. Hate it. Feel mixed. What are your opinions? I'm going to start with you first, Lauren. I would say this is one of my favorite novels that I've read in the past decade. This really blew me away. I was a huge fan of American marriage. I also really loved her earlier novel, The Untelling. And this one, I had high hopes for it. And this book

you start feeling that enthusiasm? One of your favorite novels with the past decade? Was it

as you were reading it? Was it when you finish and it was sitting with you? No, it was it was when the big thing happens that we are not going to. This book has so much heart and soul. She is a hilarious

“writer. There is incredible voice and distinction to those voices. I think it is so beautifully”

plotted. It's really hard to pull off as intricate a plot. As this is, there are, as we've been talking about to divergent threads. These women do not overlap physically for very much of the book. So to keep them so closely tethered is a real feat. And she absolutely does it. I cared about each of them

equally, which I think in so many polyphonic whatever novels that have multiple voices. It's so

common for me at least to just be itching for one of the voices to come back around in the rotation. In this one, I was equally riveted by both paths. We can talk about how the original cleaving of the two is really based on sort of class distinction that begins when their mothers are gone. They are raised by two very different influences and that sets them on different

“class paths. Anyway, I just, yeah, top level, it blew me away. I think this is partially why I”

loved it so much too. I felt like this was a deceptively complex book. It's the top level. We say it's this like sweeping story, a friendship of two motherless girls. But as you pointed out, it's about family. It's about sisterhood. It's about class. It sweeps through time. It's juggling different narratives. It's about the civil rights movement. It's about the civil rights movement. It's both informative and efficient. But voici and accessible. Those are a lot of things

enter Jones juggles it so well in a way to use a word that we've used before effortlessly. It's so hard to do all of that and make it feel so seamless. I'm so glad to hear what you said about her kind of not knowing initially that she was writing a book about any in NEC, you can tell she loves these women. It was very endearing to me that she wasn't one of those writers who says, it just flowed out of me. It was, no, she described how she laid out all the pages. She wrote

their section separately and then we'll have them together and she described bringing all the papers onto her really long island in her kitchen. And she said she had to do the work down there because she needed to put her mouth under the coffee spigot. She needed to have coffee. Like she was not, she was very real about the process which is incredibly refreshing. And so to hear that it's like that arduous, like that much work and to feel something that feels so, I'm going to say like,

airy, right? Generous. Yes. It doesn't feel labor. It feels, it's a book that's fun and enjoyable and thought provoking without being like a seminar. What about you Liz? Okay, this is going to be a boring conversation because I really loved it. And I also have loved Terry Jones's other books, although my favorite before I tie for me, my favorites are an American marriage and silver sparrow, but now this has outpaste those. And I give me a book about two friends. I will read it. I will

usually love it, but this one has, I kept thinking of that image of the duck floating calmly across the water, but underneath their feet are paddling furiously. That's the way I felt about this book. And it's, I would describe it as a book club book. For some reason, I feel like the idea of a book club book has evolved into an idea that it's somehow later or more accessible in some ways. This book is accessible to anyone, but the themes in it are huge, but once I, in this boiler part, once I saw

what she was working towards, I had a new, a new respect for this book. I always respected it. I,

really couldn't put it down. I've read it twice and loved it. I loved it even more the second time. I'm going to ask you many fellow questions as well. My first is you said this,

“kind of outpaste your previous favorites. Silver sparrow in American marriage. When did that happen?”

Again, similar to Lauren, was it as you were reading as was it when you were finished and was sitting with you, tell me about that journey. Immediately, it, I'd like almost from page one.

Terri, I just picked it up and thought this is a supremely talented writer at the top of her game.

“I love when writers take seven or eight years between books. I am probably not going to”

endure myself to the publishing community by saying that, but I'm not dying for a book a year. Give me your best stuff and give it room to breathe. And this book feels like a loaf of bread that was allowed to rise. That's a perfect metaphor. It really works that way. I'm going to, I'm going to quote my English professor that I had, which is show it in the text. What was it about that start? What was it that you saw that indicated this has had time to

percolate, to be perfected? What was it in the writing in the prose itself? The chapters alternate

perspectives, you do not need the word at the top of the chapter head that says,

"Nicee or Annie, you, you know their voices." And also, there are a lot of characters in this book. These girls, these women live in big worlds. They build big worlds for themselves. And Terry Jones approaches those worlds. The way we approach life, like in life you don't say, "I already know five people. I can't be any more people." She just hits you with person after person after person and some of them only come in for a sentence or a paragraph or a scene,

and yet they stick with you. And you definitely don't need a family tree at the front of the book to remind you how the three Irene's fit together. There are three Irene's in this book. You know exactly who they are. I want to quote from our review of this book because radica Jones, no relation to T.R. Jones, reviewed this for us. And she said in the reviews something similar to your point about her character work, she says quote, "Her repertoire of

“characters feels inexhaustible in the best way, as if she can go on for decades,”

populating her fictional universe with women and men at once wholly unique and also bound by their authors sensibility and purpose." She built whole worlds and you don't need the names of the top to distinguish them. But let's distinguish them here in this room. I want to pivot and talk about Annie and Nisi, our anchors. Who are these women? And how did you connect with them? How did you think about them? Like how did you connect with them? One thing that I keep thinking about

after reading the book is the distinctions between their motherlessness. Much is made of the fact that they both lost their mothers in very different ways. Nisi, as mother, was murdered tragically by her father, who also killed himself and just this horrific crime to happen before Nisi can remember her mother. Whereas Annie, his mother, just abandoned her and moved, we think, to Memphis,

“we're not really sure, but you know, left her by choice. Annie really harps on this, right?”

The two, the two girls obviously talk about this. They are what they call each other's cradle friends. They are sisters. They are real family to each other. And so they don't shy away from saying, Annie says, Nisi, you're lucky your mother died. There's finality to that. I'm paraphrasing. She can't be found. And everyone feels sorry for you. It's this very sad thing that happened to you. For me, it's this is this Mark of Shame. You know, my mother's out there and she doesn't want me.

There's this just these two, of course, the reader doesn't feel like one is better than the other. These are two just unspeakably sad realities that these girls have to reckon with from a very young age. And it sets them off as he's saying on really different paths. And the sort of substitute mothers, the women who very lovingly raise them in both cases, Nisi's aunt, Irene, who reluctantly mothers. You know, Irene was her sister's child. And she has to come back

from her life, her independent life in Ohio to raise this girl, who she really always has very

high hopes for. Irene wants Nisi to be a successful independent woman. She wants Nisi to get out of honey suckles. She wants Nisi to have a life. Annie's grandmother raises her. And it's really all Annie's grandmother can hope for that Annie doesn't become a sex worker. You know, that Annie is alive and healthy and and makes an honest living. And that is really the extent of what what is hope for for Annie. And so Annie, she gets out of the town, but she's not going to go to

Spellman is what I'm saying. And those class distinctions prove extremely influential on the rest of their lives,

the distinctions in the ways that they are mothered or not are so rich for me. To me, it's a reminder,

you find there are many ways to find maternal connection. And the young Nisi and Annie at the beginning of the book have a very, very clear vision of what motherhood looks like. And what Nisi doesn't realize is that when she left for Spellman, this village of women rose up, they collected suitcases. The the parish collected clothing for her. They equipped her with everything she needed to go to college materially and just non-materially. And like any 17 or 18 year old, she's happy to take

the suitcases, but she doesn't really think of all the hands that touched them and brought them to her. Liz, you said this very succinctly about in a book of about motherlessness. We were talking off make and you mentioned this. In a book about motherlessness, there are more mothers in this book.

“Then I think I've seen in any book I've read recently. Also, there's a lot about abandonment.”

And one of the reasons Annie's grandmother is slightly hands off is because she says to Annie over and over, I keep raising these kids and they keep leaving. And then Annie, I'm not giving anything away. Really, this happens at the beginning of the book. Annie leaves in the middle of the night and doesn't even take a bite and easy. And so, and there are all these examples of people disappearing and letting each other down. And yet there's something really unsinkable about both of the girls.

They just keep, they keep rising up and they keep finding more people to connect with. I love that you mentioned the word abandonment. Because that's something I thought of a lot while reading this. I feel like it was one of those things where motherhood was the story, but abandonment was the soul. Yeah, completely. Time is time again. These women are facing abandonment, finding family, and then having to choose who to stick with or who not to. And

time and time again, people are talking about abandonment. So, there's a point later on in the

“in the book where I think it's Annie's like finding my mother as the point of my life and I think”

these, he says, if finding your mother as the point of your life and you start reading this quote and you're like, you think that she's going to say, what about you, what about your hopes and dreams? What she says instead is, if finding your mother as the point of your life, what about me? And you feel like the connection of these two girls and they're feeling that like they're on paths to find their mothers together, but they aren't together. Don't abandon me. Similar to

on Irene, who's like, I can't raise any more children because I can't talk to children. It's the grandmother because I can't raise any more children. And Irene says over and over, I don't, look at me. I don't know how to talk to kids. He says wildly inappropriate things

“in the middle of the story. I don't know how to talk to kids. She was one of my favorite characters.”

I really, really love her. Hold me for a while about that. It's really good. Yeah. So, we are talking about abandonment and the thing that sticks out to me so much and it goes

back to your first question studio. Just when did you know you love this book? These two, the

bond between these two women is so complex. It's not, yeah, we can look at the title of this book as Ken. They are, of course, not related by blood, but they are each others. Ken, they are each others closest. People, they are sisters. They are also, in some ways, in love with each other. There's a real undercurrents, overcurrents in some places of something more than just platonic sisterly friendship. And, but it, Jones doesn't need to hit you over the head with that. It's,

it's there. It is real. It's, it's not black and white. It's just this kind of astonishing complexity that she draws so nimbley. And you don't even have to say, wait, are they, are they lesbians? Do they love, it's, it's, it's not that would be so reductive. And she doesn't even invite that. It's just, this is what humans, this is what a real human relationship looks like. It is so deep that it doesn't

need definition. I just thought that was amazingly done. I completely agree. I can never abandon

each other as why I got to this. I've been watching in the coverage of this book to see how that incredibly deep connection is covered. And also the relationship that Nisi finds with her roommate's Bellman. And, and I feel heartened that that is just, people are not really drilling down on that. It's understood like these women are incredibly connected. And I found that so moving. Very real.

Act. But first, I think we stick a quick break. In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family. Anyone's first cousin could be plotting murder. This is UCE 4735,

and today is. Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals.

It's a great morning with Alan Gesson. And I wouldn't even call my cousin Alan. And upstanding citizens. You know, my clients are in cartel level guys. They're all bad assets. They, they, but it's one thing to know, there's a more permanent way to do it. Yeah, more and more different. Permanent. And another thing to understand. Alan, murder, me. It's another being so much worse

“than I thought I knew. The price is definitely reasonable. Okay, what the hell was Alan thinking?”

Like, let's just say that I'm living with his stuff. Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. From serial productions and the New York Times, I'm M. Gesson, and this is the idiot. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. This is the book review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm talking with my colleagues, Liz Egan, and Lauren Christensen, and we're talking about kin by T.R. E. Jones. Before we return to our

conversation in the studio, I just wanted to share some reader comments. We've also been talking about this book online with our book club community. Right now, we have an article headline book club read kin by T.R. E. Jones with the book review. People are leaving their thoughts about the book fair, and it's wanted to read a few. Jill, from Indianapolis, right? T.R. E. Jones is doing

“so many incredible things in this book. I keep peeling back layers of my mind when I think it over”

again. One specific theme I think will stick with me is how she's exploring the violence this country in acts on black women and how it manifests inside their bodies. Jennifer from Chicago, right? The details of these characters were so well written and the focus on the different choices when we make and how that can reverberate through our lives was so specific and truthful. And last but not least, Heather, from Haley, right? An American marriage is one of

my favorite books and can do not disappoint. So many sentences that take your breath away, well, revealing every truth that language allows. T.R. E. Jones, thank you for sharing the unforgettable NECI and Annie with us. So those are just a few comments. Keep up the conversation. I'm loving hearing what you're thinking about the book, but now let's go back to our conversation in this studio. So before the break, we were talking about our main theme, motherhood, sisterhood,

our main character is Annie, NECI. And now I kind of want to talk about some of the other things that we find really interesting that's sitting with us in this book. Liz right before the break you mentioned, Joette, who is NECI's roommate at Spellman, and then turned into her lover. She was

“one of my favorite characters. So I'm going to talk about her for a little bit. Is that okay?”

Absolutely. And Mark on this adventure is amazing. Absolutely. I'm always interested in characters

who grew up in a funeral home. Yeah, so Joette, her story is that she comes from this like Spellman family and her family owns a funeral home. And that's where Joette grew up. What I loved about Joette is she is, she's a queer lover. Set in the 50s. And I love how Tirao Jones approached this queer love story. It feels so raw and honest. And she is someone that NECI has to decide. Does she want to have this taboo love or does she want to marry this man Franklin who represents the family that

she's always wanted. And I found that tension so interesting and dynamic and also an interesting type of pairing, right? Like we have the pairs of NECI's foils each other. And then within their storylines, they have like lovers who are foils. And so in NECI's we have Joette and Franklin. What did you think about Joette overall? Joette plays a hugely important role across the entire

second half of the book in terms of the plot. And I think the way Jones handles that

is so difficult to pull off. And it does not feel contrived at all. What I loved about Joette is you mentioned abandonment before. In this book where we're thinking about family and the family you choose and the family you yearn for. I feel like having NECI find a love that she has to then choose. Do I sacrifice this for our family that I want? Or not? Added an interesting texture and dynamic to it. And that is echoed in any storyline because she is stating this guy Bobo who's

Bobo's like enough be with me. And so for me what I loved about Joette and I guess Bobo and the storylines is you see how these women are yearning for family and motherhood. But what does that yearning lead to? So that's something that I really loved. And I think it's we talked about careful and

“seamless and intricate and that's what I think is going on with these characters. So that's my”

idea that I wanted to pose. But now I'm going to throw out what I call free swim. I want to hear what you're interested in. I've been guiding the conversation now. I'm going to follow your lead.

One thing that also struck me on the second read is how in addition to the main action in the book,

there is this undercurrent of the civil rights movement unfolding across the U.S. and Joette's cousin is very active in the student movement and talks about Rosa Parks and talks about of sitting that's happening in Oklahoma City where a girl named Barbara Ann Posey is part of a group that's sitting at a lunch counter in Oklahoma City every day for two years to integrate the lunch counter. Well, fun fact, Barbara Ann Posey Jones is Terry Jones's mom and that's I just I didn't

even realize it until I reread the book that she gives her mom that little shout out we talked about

“her mom in our interview. But she describes the the world they're living in as I think I might be”

watching this but under the dirty wing of Jim Crow and everything they do is in the shadow of the progress or lack thereof that is happening around them and she does it with an incredibly

subtle hand but it's there and it's powerful. I think this is the refrain of the episode

look how subtly she does this incredible thing. Like a shout out their mom who is a civil rights hero in their book it's amazing. Lauren I was going to ask about what your big idea is that you want to talk about but I feel like you want to talk about what happened in the second half of the book. Is this true? Most spills I want to talk about happen to do with this big big event that is the turning point. So take us there readers this is your spoiler alert. We're about to dive into

the spoiler feel section and I'm belaboring this point to give everyone time to sign off if you don't want spoilers. Now we're diving into spoilers. Lauren just give us the set up. Recept the table. Yes so Annie as we've talked about leaves honey suckle in the thick of night and obscons up to Memphis with three teenagers including a boy Bobo who becomes her boyfriend up in Memphis she gets a job at a bar. She's a bartender. Bobo abandoned her speaking of abandonment.

Bobo breaks up with her and she is single and really missing his company and ends up having sex with her much older married boss. It is a very poor decision but you know she's in her 20s at this point and it's no harm no foul until she finds out she is pregnant. She knows she cannot have this child and really is intentional about not wanting to repeat mistakes of her own mother. Not having a child she does not feel that she can raise and be therefore. Abortion is illegal

at this time in Mississippi. She has to resort to an undercover operation, literal operation back at Lula Bell's brothel in order to pay for this. This is how she comes back into contact with her. This is how she is physically reconnected with with Nisi she needs money and who has money Nisi.

“Nisi's in laws have money and of course in hindsight you're like, how did I not see this coming?”

I was just bold over during this operation which she technically survived. She wakes up from the operation she's woozy on pain killers and she's going to be reunited with Nisi. She calls her and she calls her she's talking she's woozy from whatever. There was I mean it was a botched surgery she had severe internal bleeding and died. The moment she dies in this book that I feel like I may as well have just thrown the book on the floor. I couldn't I could not believe it. I couldn't stomach it.

It felt like I had lost a friend. Jones could have left it at that. It already landed. We were already completely bold over by this death. On top of this we find out in hindsight in a belatedly

narrative chapter from Annie's perspective. She says I never told anyone this but my mother came

died. Her mother came to the bar, ordered a Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, yeah. And tips Annie three quarters which she vows to hold on to for the rest of her life which turns out to be

“extremely short. I have chills thinking about this. It is I think it's a span of six pages”

or something and I mean I could read it over and over again. It is endlessly rich. There's so much

just pure sadness and love in that passage. It really takes my packet for me. What an amazing

writer to put off. Yeah. How does that come through? Like what is it? This entire character's motivation for the for the whole book. Everything you know about Annie, the top line is she wants to find her mother. Every woman who comes into that bar, she thinks is this my mother is this my I mean it's like the children's book or you my mother. She's it is just a primal searching for this missing piece of her life. And you don't find out until

after the fact it's such a precious moment to her that she can't even speak it until this moment when she dies trying not to repeat her mother's mistakes. And you realize it's been for shadowed ever since Nisi's mother died right? They are cradle friends. There's this an original death, the mother dying before she can ever have a relationship with her child. And then you end with

Annie dying before she can never become a mother. I mean it is it is so poignant. The layers are

laid so perfectly. I just yeah I'm a broken record on this. I just love it so much. The very end to me had real hour town vibes. I don't know if you remember the play hour town where Emily who has died can see the world as it's ticking along and it's excruciatingly painful for her. And I loved I would never have abandoned the book but when Annie you're so invested in the characters and then Annie dies I couldn't believe that this was the move but you end the book

in Annie's voice. You get to hear from her again and it didn't make it a happy ending but it felt I it was just it was it was so beautifully done. So point in yeah yeah what I love about the structure of that ending because it does happen pretty quickly right like the chapters are short and you're flashing between like leaves like flashbacks and like the grief of what's going on in the present. It happens pretty quickly that those vignettes but it doesn't feel rushed to me.

Instead it feels like a haunting almost very well paid and it sits with you and then there's one small foreshadowing thing that I loved and I was reading into it for a second time and I noticed it and it appears on page 21. I think it's Annie is talking to her aunt and her aunt says listen here and don't you get yourself confused. The road for niece is walking is paved different from yours.

It ain't fair but that's the way life takes us but remember always that every path leads to the

cemetery and it's up to you to be ready to see the Lord. Like there's a lot of like early on these parents are talking about like the the grave is coming the grave is coming or I'm trying to find this quote because it's about Annie and niecee not giving up on each other and appreciating each other. Oh I have it on Irene is talking to niecee. It's sad to never have a mother

“and then on Irene says that's what you and Annie have together that silly sadness. I'm sorry”

you didn't get to know Arlitha although she couldn't have lived up to your imaginary mother or during you from heaven. Hattily was trifling from the day she was born but I guess Annie will figure that out in her own time but listen you all both are so devoted to your mothers but you have been more to each other than what either of your maimies ever gave so give Annie some of that devotion that you have been wasting on a daydream right to her don't wait to one of you is dying to

try and understand that's amazing yeah so this like urge like appreciate each other before one of you dies and the voice of wisdom. It's a lesson yeah it's a lesson yeah it's it we bet if there's a moral to this story which thankfully is not delivered in a heavy-handed way that's it

“that moral I think is a great note to end on me could talk about this book all day it's so”

complex as we've noted many many times and so well done so continue the conversation again online we have an article up headline book club read kin by tear judge with book review but we before we

or anyone who's read kin what would you recommend they read next this could be for whatever reason maybe it's another book about sisterhood maybe it's another book about searching for family maybe it's another book set in Atlanta I will follow your lead but I'm curious what would you

recommend readers pick up after they have read kin I'm gonna start with you first list and I give

two recommendations of course as a book's podcast more books the better one is clutch by Emily Nemance it's a book about a group of friends and it is and follows naturally on kin it's very different but it's about a group of friends and a bunch of trails they go through together and the other one is by a leger goodman it's called this is not about us it has these are brand heroes yes yes this one

“the leger goodman book has a bunk cake on the cover which I think is one of the great covers and it's”

about a family in the aftermath of the death of one of the matriarchs and you you hear about the family dynamics from several different perspectives in the family it it functions as a novel but each chapter could be a tone story and like kin it's about what family means to us and how family comes in many different forms which is one of my favorite subjects and I just loved it I love both those recommendations and again brand new books I feel like breaking news here on

the book for you outcast what about you learn what would you recommend so I also have to the first is

a book by Stephanie Wambugu it's called lonely crowds it came out last year this one is about two friends who are moving through the art scene of 1990s New York City it is similarly a very complex portrait of what a sisterhood friendship romantic relationship between two women can look like it is very real it defies easy categorization the love between them the connection it is similarly a foranteish dynamic between two really smart quite different endlessly devoted young women

the other one is Brit Bennett's the vanishing house which is about actual sisters who similarly

they they begin life together obviously their twins and they they are set off on wildly divergent

life paths because one of the sisters decides to pass for white and the other does not she decides to embrace her her black identity and Bennett is looking at the kind of long-term implications of that that very seminal decision that these these sisters make the storytelling really reminds me

“of this book and I think anyone who likes Ken will definitely find something to love in a Brit”

Bennett too excellent excellent recommendations I read lonely crowds last year because of you and I loved it and I've been doing that for them too what book would you recommend I also have a few I have two more if we have time to be an over a cheaper my main one that I want to mention is it's not a sisterhood story but it is in its own way a sweeping family novel it is the love songs of W.E.B. to boys by honorary for known Jeffers you follow a young black girl Ailey Pearl Garfield

as she's just growing up with her family between DC and Georgia and she's grappling with her her own family how she fits in how she fits in with her surroundings or how she doesn't fit in and then the other story line is you flash back to the past to her indigenous ancestors here before like America is even America and you follow the family line up up through to the present moment it is a really smart well done immersive heartfelt coming of age story anchored to family

and it's also just one of my all-time favorites and so I had to shop that out here and then the other was lonely crowds you mentioned Liz you mentioned that T.R.E. had a comp for this it's Sula Meets beaches yes I definitely would recommend Sula love Sula I'm not sure that I would recommend

“beaches and it was kind of a funny mashup that I think she said partially ingest but it does it does”

apply here well I've been thinking a lot about Toni Morrison because of the new Toni Morrison books that came out including on Morrison and then that made me think of Sula which is also an all-time favorite and that has very close lifelong friendship as well so those are my recommendations Liz we have time for lightning rod just a flash out some titles if you have them you mentioned

who will run the frog hospital by Laurie Moore and Katzai by Margaret Atwood which of course is about

a pair of friends gone wrong who can resist mine is a little forward looking it's not out yet it's gonna come out in May it is the new novel by Katherine Stockett it is also historical novel this one is about they're not two friends but they are two young women who come into contact with each other and change each other's lives in 1930s Mrs. Sippy sorry it's called the calamity club

there are a strange number of resonances across both both books different sensibilities

“different stories of course but I think the same reader would enjoy both and then my other”

recommendation I guess it's not even a recommendation because I haven't read it yet but it's on my reading list because of this I was really thinking and we didn't dive into this aspect of kin but I was thinking about like the American South as a cultural space and a history and a heritage and I wanted to learn more about that because that really comes through in this book and so I wanted to read South to America by a money Perry and I was like looking more into it and guess

we'll review it for the book review here he comes what a great parent can you assign it no I was like I don't know I don't know who assigned it but I want to read that and then again thinking about the American South another book that's coming up is witness and despair by Jespin Ward this is not necessarily about friendship or anything but I was just thinking more books about the American South

“I think that's all the time we have unfortunately this is really fun so much fun now we”

not want to read it first time you're getting so many other notes it's such a careful book

yeah such a careful movie coming do we know this was an opera pick I should say not only was it a pick of the book club book review and the other book club you call the Oprah's book club why don't you want your I hope it's there some love if anyone any producers are listening to this you had it from us first make this movie yeah that's all the time we have for today before we go

“though I want to reveal as promised our April book club book in April we will be reading the”

renovation by Kannon or ha and this is a debut novel about a Turkish exile she's living in Italy she's doing a bathroom renovation and the workers leave she opens the door and sees they didn't make a bathroom they made a prison cell and it's not just like a facsimile of a prison cell she steps into it and she's actually in this infamous prison in Turkey it transports her it's so weird it's so thoughtful it's so good I'm so excited to talk to you about it we'll be back next month we'll be back next month

right now up online we have an article headline book club read the renovation by Kannon or ha and with the book review join readers there leave comments we're so excited to talk with you about this by until then happy reading that was MJ Franklin leading our monthly book club discussion this time about kin the new novel from Tyre Jones I'm Gilbert Cruz thanks for listening