An ex-convict returns to his Chicago community a changed man—but maybe not for the better—in this "vivid, suspenseful, funny, and compassionate novel" ( Booklist).One of Booklist 's Top 10 First Novels of the YearOne of Roxane Gay's Top 10 Books of the YearAfter fourteen years in prison, Gerald "Stew Pot" Reeves, age thirty-one, returns home to live with his mom in Parkland, a black middle-class neighborhood on Chi...

"Once upon a time, way back in the 1950s, when there was no cyber or cable anything and the cars were all big and boxy, there was a little girl who lived wither mother and father, just the three of them, in a fine brick house on the Far South Side of Chicago. (Only Negro people, as they called themselves back then, lived in the neighborhood, nearly all of them also living in fine brick houses.) The Girl's favorite part of the day was evening when her Daddy returned from work. No matter the...

An ex-convict returns to his Chicago community a changed man—but maybe not for the better—in this “vivid, suspenseful, funny, and compassionate novel” (Booklist).One of Booklist’s Top 10 First Novels of the YearOne of Roxane Gay’s Top 10 Books of the YearAfter fourteen years in prison, Gerald “Stew Pot” Reeves, age thirty-one, returns home to live with his mom in Parkland, a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The residents are in a tailspin, dread...