'Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory' Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings'A compelling hurricane of a book' Ann Patchett'A welcome reminder of what fiction can do' Rumaa
"A collection of brilliant wit, real heart, and electric humor.” ―Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday BlackA major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. The family pushes on first through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You centers on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself. After a fight
