Kin: A Novel

Tayari Jones, the bestselling and award-winning author of An American Marriage, has crafted a magnificent new novel titled Kin. This unforgettable story sparkles with wit, intelligence, and deep emotion as it explores the lives of two lifelong friends whose paths intersect after many years apart, brought together by a devastating tragedy. The New York Times has listed it as one of “The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026.”

Vernice and Annie, two daughters raised without mothers in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since childhood. However, they lead very different lives. Vernice, cared for by a strong aunt who aims to provide her with stability after her mother’s death, leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen to attend Spelman College. There, she joins a powerful sisterhood of Black women and enters a world of affluence, manners, ambition, and inequality.

In contrast, Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child, is obsessed with finding her mother and filling the emptiness left by her absence. Her quest leads her into a life filled with danger and challenges, as well as love and adventure, ultimately culminating in a fight for her survival.

Kin is a novel that explores the themes of motherhood, friendship, sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South. It is an exuberant, emotionally rich, and unforgettable work by one of contemporary fiction’s most compelling voices. Kin delves into themes of motherhood and daughterhood, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South.

Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, including her most recent work, An American Marriage. This novel was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and featured on Barack Obama’s summer reading list and his year-end roundup. It has won several prestigious awards, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and an NAACP Image Award, and published in two dozen countries. Jones serves as the C.H. Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and resides in Atlanta.

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