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A Novel
Atria
November 2007
On Sale: November 6, 2007
352 pages
ISBN: 1416549153
EAN: 9781416549154
Hardcover
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Fiction
The author of the bestselling memoir Makes Me Wanna Holler
presents a profound debut novel -- in the tradition of Tom
Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and Zadie Smith's White
Teeth -- that captures the dynamics of class and race in
today's urban integrated communities. Nathan McCall's novel, Them, tells a compelling story set in
a downtown Atlanta neighborhood known for its main street,
Auburn Avenue, which once was regarded as the "richest Negro
street in the world." The story centers around Barlowe Reed, a single,
forty-something African American who rents a ramshackle
house on Randolph Street, just a stone's throw from the
historic birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Barlowe,
who works as a printer, otherwise passes the time reading
and hanging out with other men at the corner store. He
shares his home and loner existence with a streetwise,
twentysomething nephew who is struggling to get his troubled
life back on track. When Sean and Sandy Gilmore, a young white couple, move in
next door, Barlowe and Sandy develop a reluctant, complex
friendship as they hold probing -- often frustrating --
conversations over the backyard fence. Members of both households, and their neighbors as well, try
to go about their business, tending to their homes and jobs.
However, fear and suspicion build -- and clashes ensue --
with each passing day, as more and more new whites move in
and make changes and once familiar people and places disappear. Using a blend of superbly developed characters in a story
that captures the essence of this country's struggles with
the unsettling realities of gentrification, McCall has
produced a truly great American novel.
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