A satirical and daring collection of short stories exploring black life from one of America's rising stars.'Makes you shake your head in delight... Her stories feel simultaneously like the poke of a stick and a comforting balm; a smack followed by a kiss. I’m so into it' Bim Adewunmi, GuardianHeads of the Colored People interrogates our supposedly post-racial era to wicked and devastating effect, exposing the violence that threatens black Americans, no matter their apparent success. A teenager is insidiously bullied as her YouTube following soars; an assistant professor finds himself losing a subtle war against his office mate; a nurse is worn down by the demand for her skills as a funeral singer. And across a series of stories, a young woman grows up, negotiating and renegotiating her identity.This electric collection of short stories marks the arrival of a remarkable writer and an urgent new voice.*Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2019**Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019*

From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Awardlonglisted, vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, literary debut novel about the murder of an infamous moonshiner and the cacophony of true stories a small town can tell about itself.Rich Milford is dead. At last. We find ourselves in 1920s Oklahoma, just far enough out of Tulsa, just long enough after the Race Massacre of 1921. For as long as anyone can remember, the Milfords have led plentiful lives on the backs of the townspeople of Newville. Now, on the ominous brink of the Great Depression and at the height of Prohibition, Richard Milford was an infamous moonshiner and womanizer who, it seems, finally crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. Hes dead and buried with only his women to mourn him, but a question remains: Who killed him, and why? Top suspects are his four wives, Lally, Sophronia, Georgette, and Vivianne. But as their stories burst to light, the very idea of a true story comes apart before our eyes. In an electric follow-up to her acclaimed debut collection, Nafissa Thompson-Spires once again serves up a brilliant distillation of front-of-mind happeningsthink, cults of personality, capitalism run amok in politics, and rampant societal distruststructured like a stupefying line dance. In her uniquely powerful, humorous manner, Thompson-Spires takes on the interdependent clash of the traditional and the newfangled in this gobsmackingly excellent novel.

From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Awardlonglisted, vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, literary debut novel about the murder of an infamous moonshiner and the cacophony of true stories a small town can tell about itself.Rich Milford is dead. At last. We find ourselves in 1920s Oklahoma, just far enough out of Tulsa, just long enough after the Race Massacre of 1921. For as long as anyone can remember, the Milfords have led plentiful lives on the backs of the townspeople of Newville. Now, on the ominous brink of the Great Depression and at the height of Prohibition, Richard Milford was an infamous moonshiner and womanizer who, it seems, finally crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. Hes dead and buried with only his women to mourn him, but a question remains: Who killed him, and why? Top suspects are his four wives, Lally, Sophronia, Georgette, and Vivianne. But as their stories burst to light, the very idea of a true story comes apart before our eyes. In an electric follow-up to her acclaimed debut collection, Nafissa Thompson-Spires once again serves up a brilliant distillation of front-of-mind happeningsthink, cults of personality, capitalism run amok in politics, and rampant societal distruststructured like a stupefying line dance. In her uniquely powerful, humorous manner, Thompson-Spires takes on the interdependent clash of the traditional and the newfangled in this gobsmackingly excellent novel.

Winner of the PEN Open Book Award * Winner of the Whiting Award * Longlisted for the National Book Award and Aspen Words Literary Prize * Nominated for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize * Finalist for the Kirkus Prize and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by Refinery29, NPR, The Root, HuffPost, Vanity Fair, Bustle, Chicago Tribune, PopSugar, and The Undefeated In one of the season’s most acclaimed works of fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires offers “a firecracker of a book...a triumph of storytelling: intelligent, acerbic, and ingenious” (Financial Times).Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with race, identity politics, and the contemporary middle class in this “vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive” (George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo) collection. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous—two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids’ backpacks—while others are devastatingly poignant. In the title story, when a cosplayer, dressed as his favorite anime character, is mistaken for a violent threat the consequences are dire; in another story, a teen struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with so-called black culture. Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship. Boldly resisting categorization and easy answers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires “has taken the best of what Toni Cade Bambara, Morgan Parker, and Junot Díaz do plus a whole lot of something we’ve never seen in American literature, blended it all together...giving us one of the finest short-story collections” (Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division).

A satirical and daring collection of short stories exploring black life from one of America's rising stars.'Makes you shake your head in delight... Her stories feel simultaneously like the poke of a stick and a comforting balm; a smack followed by a kiss. I’m so into it' Bim Adewunmi, GuardianHeads of the Colored People interrogates our supposedly post-racial era to wicked and devastating effect, exposing the violence that threatens black Americans, no matter their apparent success. A teenager is insidiously bullied as her YouTube following soars; an assistant professor finds himself losing a subtle war against his office mate; a nurse is worn down by the demand for her skills as a funeral singer. And across a series of stories, a young woman grows up, negotiating and renegotiating her identity.This electric collection of short stories marks the arrival of a remarkable writer and an urgent new voice.*Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2019**Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019*

A satirical and daring collection of short stories exploring black life from one of America's rising stars.'Makes you shake your head in delight... Her stories feel simultaneously like the poke of a stick and a comforting balm; a smack followed by a kiss. I’m so into it' Bim Adewunmi, GuardianHeads of the Colored People interrogates our supposedly post-racial era to wicked and devastating effect, exposing the violence that threatens black Americans, no matter their apparent success. A teenager is insidiously bullied as her YouTube following soars; an assistant professor finds himself losing a subtle war against his office mate; a nurse is worn down by the demand for her skills as a funeral singer. And across a series of stories, a young woman grows up, negotiating and renegotiating her identity.This electric collection of short stories marks the arrival of a remarkable writer and an urgent new voice.*Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2019**Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019*

From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Awardlonglisted, vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, literary debut novel about the murder of an infamous moonshiner and the cacophony of true stories a small town can tell about itself.Rich Milford is dead. At last. We find ourselves in 1920s Oklahoma, just far enough out of Tulsa, just long enough after the Race Massacre of 1921. For as long as anyone can remember, the Milfords have led plentiful lives on the backs of the townspeople of Newville. Now, on the ominous brink of the Great Depression and at the height of Prohibition, Richard Milford was an infamous moonshiner and womanizer who, it seems, finally crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. Hes dead and buried with only his women to mourn him, but a question remains: Who killed him, and why? Top suspects are his four wives, Lally, Sophronia, Georgette, and Vivianne. But as their stories burst to light, the very idea of a true story comes apart before our eyes. In an electric follow-up to her acclaimed debut collection, Nafissa Thompson-Spires once again serves up a brilliant distillation of front-of-mind happeningsthink, cults of personality, capitalism run amok in politics, and rampant societal distruststructured like a stupefying line dance. In her uniquely powerful, humorous manner, Thompson-Spires takes on the interdependent clash of the traditional and the newfangled in this gobsmackingly excellent novel.

From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Awardlonglisted, vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, literary debut novel about the murder of an infamous moonshiner and the cacophony of true stories a small town can tell about itself.Rich Milford is dead. At last. We find ourselves in 1920s Oklahoma, just far enough out of Tulsa, just long enough after the Race Massacre of 1921. For as long as anyone can remember, the Milfords have led plentiful lives on the backs of the townspeople of Newville. Now, on the ominous brink of the Great Depression and at the height of Prohibition, Richard Milford was an infamous moonshiner and womanizer who, it seems, finally crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. Hes dead and buried with only his women to mourn him, but a question remains: Who killed him, and why? Top suspects are his four wives, Lally, Sophronia, Georgette, and Vivianne. But as their stories burst to light, the very idea of a true story comes apart before our eyes. In an electric follow-up to her acclaimed debut collection, Nafissa Thompson-Spires once again serves up a brilliant distillation of front-of-mind happeningsthink, cults of personality, capitalism run amok in politics, and rampant societal distruststructured like a stupefying line dance. In her uniquely powerful, humorous manner, Thompson-Spires takes on the interdependent clash of the traditional and the newfangled in this gobsmackingly excellent novel.

Winner of the PEN Open Book Award * Winner of the Whiting Award * Longlisted for the National Book Award and Aspen Words Literary Prize * Nominated for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize * Finalist for the Kirkus Prize and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by Refinery29, NPR, The Root, HuffPost, Vanity Fair, Bustle, Chicago Tribune, PopSugar, and The Undefeated In one of the season’s most acclaimed works of fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires offers “a firecracker of a book...a triumph of storytelling: intelligent, acerbic, and ingenious” (Financial Times).Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with race, identity politics, and the contemporary middle class in this “vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive” (George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo) collection. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous—two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids’ backpacks—while others are devastatingly poignant. In the title story, when a cosplayer, dressed as his favorite anime character, is mistaken for a violent threat the consequences are dire; in another story, a teen struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with so-called black culture. Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship. Boldly resisting categorization and easy answers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires “has taken the best of what Toni Cade Bambara, Morgan Parker, and Junot Díaz do plus a whole lot of something we’ve never seen in American literature, blended it all together...giving us one of the finest short-story collections” (Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division).

A satirical and daring collection of short stories exploring black life from one of America's rising stars.'Makes you shake your head in delight... Her stories feel simultaneously like the poke of a stick and a comforting balm; a smack followed by a kiss. I’m so into it' Bim Adewunmi, GuardianHeads of the Colored People interrogates our supposedly post-racial era to wicked and devastating effect, exposing the violence that threatens black Americans, no matter their apparent success. A teenager is insidiously bullied as her YouTube following soars; an assistant professor finds himself losing a subtle war against his office mate; a nurse is worn down by the demand for her skills as a funeral singer. And across a series of stories, a young woman grows up, negotiating and renegotiating her identity.This electric collection of short stories marks the arrival of a remarkable writer and an urgent new voice.*Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2019**Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019*