If I Survive You Synopsis
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'
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780008685799 |
| Publication date: |
14th March 2024 |
| Author: |
Jonathan Escoffery |
| Publisher: |
4th Estate an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
272 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Shorter Reads
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| Other Genres: |
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Jonathan Escoffery Press Reviews
'A ravishing debut which stomps on the delicate vessel of the trauma plot. Escoffery's fiction is marked by ingenuity.The book feels thrillingly free' New Yorker
'A gifted, sure-footed storyteller, with a command of evocative language ... a disarming, irreverent sense of humor ... makes me eager to read him for a long time to come' New York Times
'It's rare for a story collection to break out of the gate with as much buzz as Escoffery's debut ... the author exposes uncomfortable social truths with fine details, wit and dazzling verbal versatility' Los Angeles Times
'Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory and like nothing you've read before' Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings
'This I adore. Escoffery's collection of linked stories is sumptuous and astute, excellent on the humiliations of familial and societal experience, triumphant in its spirited retaliation. An absolute delight' Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People
'Connected short stories that reads like a novel, that reads like real life, that reads like fiction written at the highest level ... A compelling hurricane of a book' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
'An electrifying, enthralling debut about identity and belonging ... Spectacular' Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun
'It's truly a feat that a book of short stories tackling such big stuff family, love, violence, race could be so damn funny ... a welcome reminder of what fiction can do' Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
'Brilliant wit, real heart and electric humour ... a talent not to be ignored' Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black
'These are superb stories about identity, family and place. Escoffery's is a strong, much needed new voice in our literature' Percival Everett author of Erasure
