Jesmyn Ward

We don't talk about it anymore.

"Salvage the Bones" by Jesmyn Ward, that's a good one.

There you go.

That's still in the mix.

It's tough.

Uh, "The Underground Railroad" in 2016, obviously we co-signed that.

"Sing, Unburied, Sing," Jesmyn Ward in 2017.

That's a great pick, but "Pachinko" was also a finalist that year.

Yeah

... um, Flannery O'Connor, um, just down to, like, the, the more modern writers like Eden Royce, um, Jesmyn Ward-

Oh, gosh, yeah

... you know? Michael McDowell.

Yeah.

I've got Jesmyn Ward and Dennis Johnson on Wrecked Places, I'm calling it.

Nice.

So Mississippi, obviously, the American West, talking about the impact of addiction, the impact of like, you know, the weird weather patterns they have out in these places, grace, salvation, all of that kind of stuff.

And.

I think it's even more troubling because when I think of Latoya Watkins, I can't help but think of Toni Morrison, right? I can't help but think of Jesmyn Ward.

And these very, like, I'm getting chills saying that, very heavy hitter stories that they're telling that are changing, right? And it sucks because I don't want her to be like Zora Neale Hurston that doesn't get her flowers until she's gone.

Yeah.

The...

It's called The Hanged Man by Catherine Connor.

And it's set for fans of Jesmyn Ward, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor.

Against the surreal landscape of the Deep South, three Lebanese-American sisters encounter their missing mother six years after she vanished from their lives.

or literary fiction that takes up questions of crime.

So I also write about books by Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison and Don DeLillo, more contemporary writers like Colson Whitehead and Jesmyn Ward.

And then the kind of third angle or subcategory here is what sometimes gets called literary genre fiction or elevated genre fiction.

So kind of genre writers who have gotten one foot on the more literary prestige side of things.