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SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE

‘Dazzling’
GUARDIAN

‘Blistering’
THE TIMES

‘A delight’ DIANA EVANS

‘Fiction written at the highest level’ ANN PATCHETT

‘Hilarious, revelatory’ MARLON JAMES

An electrifying, hilarious and deeply moving tragicomic debut novel following a Jamaican family grappling with a new life in the US.

‘What are you?’

This is the puzzled question that greets a young Trelawny growing up in a Miami where his racial ambiguity is regarded with confusion and suspicion. It’s not just his neighbours, his Jamaican parents Topper and Sanya don’t seem to understand him either. Then there’s his stubborn older brother Delano, who is determined to secure a better future for his own children, no matter what it takes.

As both brothers navigate the challenges littered in their path – a woefully unreliable father, racism, recession and even a hurricane – they find themselves increasingly at odds. Will they make it through together or must one brother’s future come at the cost of the other?

Shortlisted for the 2024 Gordon Burn Prize

‘An astonishingly assured debut novel … clarity, variety and fizzing prose’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES

‘So damn funny’ RUMAAN ALAM

‘Astonishing’
I NEWSPAPER

‘Utterly unstoppable’
IRISH TIMES

What readers say:

‘So good it was hard to put down’

‘Humour, real feeling … totally recommend’

‘So engrossing and entertaining’

‘A must read’

Publisher Review

'Regularly stopped me in my tracks ... an astonishing, compassionate entrance to the literary scene' i Newspaper 'A commanding debut from a talent to watch' Observer 'Brilliantly energetic ... his talent feels fully formed and raring to go; highly recommended' Financial Times 'Unmissable ... rare in that it has the heft and heart of a novel, with the refined finesse of the short story ... The only thing to do is eagerly press it into the hands of others' Irish Times 'Sings with authenticity and heart' AnOther '[In Escoffery's hands], the second person is arresting, intimate, adventurous ... in the final pages ... surges with the symphonic, imaginative, propulsive energy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Guardian 'Ravishing ... feels thrillingly free' New Yorker 'Fiction written at the highest level ... There are no limits to where he will go' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House 'Superb ... a beautiful economy in the telling that never sacrifices the depth, complexity and richness of the worlds these characters inhabit' Percival Everett author of Erasure 'This I adore ... Sumptuous and astute, excellent on the humiliations of familial and societal experience, triumphant in its spirited retaliation' Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People 'Tender; vicious; very funny. An impassioned, singular book' Ross Raisin, author of A Natural 'An elegant meditation on belonging from a powerful new writer' Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby 'I highly recommend this debut novel in stories ... a dazzling mirror held up to our identity-obsessed time' Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde 'A gifted, sure-footed storyteller' New York Times 'Like nothing you've read before' Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings 'So damn funny ... A welcome reminder of what fiction can do' Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind