Description

*THE BESTSELLING RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK*

From the award-winning author of An American Marriage comes this breathtaking tale of a sisterhood defined by a father’s secret, perfect for fans of Brit Bennett and Yaa Gyasi

‘MY FATHER, JAMES WITHERSPOON, IS A BIGAMIST.’

SECRETS

Dana and Chaurisse are sisters who have never met. The only thing binding them together is the life-changing secret of their father’s double life.

LIES

Only one of them knows the truth about James and his hidden family. When the girls do finally meet and become friends, the fragile promise that has kept his secrets safe for so long threatens to implode.

HOPE

This soulful story of friendship and sisterhood paints an unforgettable picture of the messy knots that bind families together, from the author of modern classic, An American Marriage.

AN OBSERVER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A GUARDIAN ‘BEST BOOK OF 2020 TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS’ * A BOOKSELLER SMALL PUBLISHERS 2020 TOP 20

‘Do not miss this can’t-actually-stop-reading-it novel from the author of the Women’s Prize for Fiction-winning An American Marriage.’ Stylist

Publisher Review

'Makes good use of multiple viewpoints and deals in the universal themes of love and trust.' * Fit and Well * 'A bruising, uneasy read at times, Jones' characters have depth and soul.' * My Weekly * 'Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy... Jones's skill for wry understatement never wavers.' * O: The Oprah Magazine * 'Jones is very good with character, catching the whole texture of a life in a phrase or two.' * Sunday Times * 'Populating this absorbing novel is a vivid cast of characters... One of literature's most intriguing extended families.' * Washington Post * 'Jones's prose is chock-full of lyricism, grace and wisdom.' * Observer * 'Silver Sparrow is rich, substantive, meaningful. It is also, at turns, funny and sharp, haunting and heartbreaking.' * The Root * 'Silver Sparrow grabs you with a first sentence that manages to be both matter of fact and mysterious and refuses to release you until she has finished a story that takes you deep into the lives of a family that is anything but ordinary.' * Pearl Cleage, author of Till You Hear from Me * 'Award winner Tayari Jones weaves a tale of Black bigamy and two families in the fascinating fiction of Silver Sparrow.' * Ebony * 'A graceful and shining work about finding the truth.' * Library Journal (starred review) * 'Jones beautifully evokes Atlanta in the 1980s while creating gritty, imperfect characters whose pain lingers in the reader's heart.' * Kirkus * 'Populating this absorbing novel is a vivid cast of characters, each with his own story... Jones writes dialogue that is realistic and sparkling, with an intuitive sense of how much to reveal and when.' * Washington Post * 'Tayari Jones has taken Atlanta for her literary terroir, and like many of our finest novelists, she gives readers a sense of place in a deeply observed way. But more than that, Jones has created in her main characters tour guides of that region: honest, hurt, observant and compelling young women whose voices cannot be ignored... Impossible to put down.' * Los Angeles Times * 'An exciting read all the way through.' * Chicago Tribune * 'One of those 'just one more chapter' kind of books that require much last-minute changing of plans, because real life feels far less amusing, appalling, shocking, and loving than the world of its characters.' * Slate * 'Silver Sparrow will break your heart before you even know it. Tayari Jones has written a novel filled with characters I'll never forget. This is a book I'll read more than once.' * Judy Blume * 'Wise to the thorny complexities of race and class... Admirably clear-eyed.' * Metro * 'Charting a vast emotional unknown is Tayari Jones's compelling third novel, Silver Sparrow, in which a teenage girl's coming of age in 1980s Atlanta is shadowed by her dawning understanding of a corrosive secret - her father's second family.' * Vogue * 'A love story... Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy... Jones's skill for wry understatement never wavers.' * O: The Oprah Magazine * 'A book rich in complications and secrets...The nature of love is one of Jones's central themes, and it's testament to her gifts that we care equally about both girls.' * Daily Mail * 'Cleverly structured, emotionally punchy.' -- Daily Telegraph 'Sparky, sharp, sorrowful.' * Sunday Express * 'This dazzlingly real novel shines light into the emotional lives of women: married, on their own, betrayed, battling for something better.' * Sainsbury's Magazine * 'An affecting story about family, love and marriage.' * Radio Times * 'How does Tayari Jones follow up the Women's Prize-winning success of An American Marriage? With an absolute belter, that's how.' * Red Magazine * 'Beautiful.' * The Spectator * 'Heartbreaking... Silver Sparrow confirms Jones' immense talent, particularly when writing about the more extreme pressures of family life.' * i newspaper * 'Last year's winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction follows up An American Marriage with another beautiful novel.' * Good Housekeeping * 'Jones' characters have depth and soul as she scathingly shatters the illusion that your parents can always be relied upon... it has a dignity and assurance to it that's quite intense.' * Herald, Scotland * 'Jones writes in a relaxed narrative style... She moves easily from depictions of Atlanta between the 1960s and the 1980s to the frustrations of teenage life and handles larger questions of birth right and belonging with admirable capaciousness and generosity.' * Financial Times * 'Jones conjures up 1980s Atlanta with conviction and has a pungently descriptive turn of phrase... Best of all, you feel utterly immersed in Jones's knotty moral dilemma and as torn in your loyalties as the characters themselves.' * The Times * 'Do not miss this can't-actually-stop-reading-it novel (out 19 March) from the author of the Women's Prize for Fiction-winning An American Marriage. Opening with the instantly gripping sentence: "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist," it's the story of two sisters - Dana and Chaurisse - one whom knows her father's secret and one who doesn't. Told from both their points of view, this is a book about love and belonging, family and secrets and a reminder that we all have our own take on things: rightly or wrongly.' * Stylist * 'This book is as moving, intimate and wise as An American Marriage on the topics of marriage, family and womanhood, and deserves similar acclaim.' * Guardian * 'Bigamy is what gives the novel its dramatic impetus, but it's the double coming-of-age story that gives it heart... [A] shrewd exploration of off-the-record relationships.' * Sunday Telegraph * 'Jones'.. latest novel also studies a way of loving, and of being a family, that doesn't fit the confines that American society allows or expects.' * Spectator * 'Compelling... It's hard to resist the momentum of this dual coming-of-age story, and Jones's imperfect, large-hearted heroines are not soon forgotten.' * Observer *