Margins
Dispossession book cover
Dispossession
2021
First Published
3.87
Average Rating
77
Number of Pages

From Tayari Jones, author of the New York Times best-selling An American Marriage, and performed by Gabrielle Union, one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020, comes an unflinching story about mothers and sons that will leave listeners reeling for days. Motherhood isn’t easy, especially when you’re a mother of a black son. Ten years ago, Cheryl jumped at the chance to send her son, Javonte, to an exclusive boarding school in New England—far away from Atlanta and the violence of the city streets. It was the American dream, or was it? Now settled in Vermont, Javonte is married and well-employed, but Cheryl hardly ever sees him, and when she does, her own son seems like someone she only used to know. So, when Javonte announces he’s coming home to Atlanta for MLK weekend, Cheryl calls off work, thinking this could be their chance to reconnect. But a few days before the visit, Javonte cancels his trip. After begging for the hours back at the white-glove moving company where she works, Cheryl accepts a last-minute gig in her own neighborhood, cheered by the idea of a black family moving on to bigger and better. But on her way to the job site, Cheryl learns the home’s occupants aren’t moving by choice—they’re being evicted. Over the next several hours, Cheryl must reckon with her own unresolved past, in this searing story about family, race and the lasting consequences of a choice that can’t be taken back.

Avg Rating
3.87
Number of Ratings
1,769
5 STARS
23%
4 STARS
45%
3 STARS
28%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Tayari Jones
Tayari Jones
Author · 8 books
Tayari Jones is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage (Algonquin Books, February 2018). Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, and Callaloo. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Silver Sparrow was named a #1 Indie Next Pick by booksellers in 2011, and the NEA added it to its Big Read Library of classics in 2016. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is currently an Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University.
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