Latoya Watkins Pořadí knih

Longlisted for the National Book Award Shortlisted for the Reading the West Book Award An extraordinary short story collection about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness—from a writer whose “spellbinding, buoyant”* storytelling will break your heart as it tends to the wounds. *Texas Monthly In Holler, Child’s eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom. In “Cutting Horse,” the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In “Holler, Child,” a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows too well from the other side. And “Time After” shows us the unshakable bonds of family as a sister journeys to find her estranged brother—the one who saved her many times over. Throughout Holler, Child, we see love lost and gained, and grief turned to hope. This collection peers deeply into lives of women and men experiencing intimate and magnificent reckonings—exploring how race, power, and inequality map on the individual, and demonstrating the mythic proportions of everyday life.

From a stunning new voice comes a powerful debut novel about a Black Texan family grappling with inherited trauma and intergenerational violence as they gather to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed. "Bear it or perish" are the words that alter Helen Jean's life trajectory one fateful night in her cousin’s outhouse. Spanning decades, the story follows Helen Jean, the Turner family matriarch, and the ripple effects of her choices across generations, impacting her children and grandchildren. Told in alternating chapters, the narrative focuses on four family members: Julie B., who regrets her wasted youth under Helen Jean’s influence; Alex, a police officer haunted by a dark past; Jan, a mother yearning to escape Jerusalem, Texas, and its trauma; and Lydia, whose struggling marriage is affected by her inability to stay pregnant. Their reunion forces the unearthing of long-held secrets, prompting each member to confront questions of forgiveness and blame. Exploring themes of family, trauma, legacy, home, class, and race, this beautiful yet heart-wrenching novel resonates with anyone interested in the complexities of familial bonds and the ways they can be formed, maintained, or irrevocably severed.