kin,  by tayari jones
monday, june 22, 6:30 PM

Vernice and Annie have been "cradle friends" since before they could choose each other: two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, bound together by what they've lost and what they still want. But their paths diverge sharply as they grow up: Vernice leaves for Spelman College and finds her footing in a world of connected, ambitious Black women; Annie, still searching for the mother who abandoned her, sets off on a journey through peril and adventure that will test everything she has.

Set against the vivid backdrop of the Jim Crow South in the 1950s and '60s, Kin is told in alternating voices as the two women move through starkly different lives, until a devastating tragedy finally brings their worlds back together. It is a novel about mothers and daughters, about friendship that functions like kinship, about what we inherit and what we choose, and about how women hold each other up across every distance and difference.

Oprah's Book Club Pick. New York Times Bestseller. From the award-winning author of An American Marriage.


​
Why we chose it:  Tayari Jones has been on our watch list for a while, and when Kin came out as an Oprah pick earlier this year we knew it was time. It's a story about two Black women, their friendship, and the very different lives they build from the same painful starting point—and Jones writes about friendship and chosen family in a way that felt right at home for a book club that's basically built on the same thing.

​Content considerations: racism and the realities of Jim Crow America, maternal abandonment, violence, sexual content, references to reproductive rights.

We'll be pairing this book with a bottle of piquette (a low-alcohol, fizzy wine) from Laughing Gems Wine.

---

---

BE SURE TO RSVP

Come enjoy some wine and tell us what you thought of the book with an informal discussion. Registration will be capped, so please register early if you are planning on attending. Remember, if you RSVP and attend, you get a Bingo bonus stamp! ​

---

raVES & REVIEWS

“Kin is a lush, beautiful novel about the family we make. . . . Jones maintains a light touch and a gift for effortless portraiture. . . . When reading Kin, I wanted nothing more than to keep reading it. That’s the circle Jones creates, the one that connects her voice, her characters and her readers.” —Radhika Jones, The New York Times Book Review

“Propulsive and compelling.” --The Boston Globe

“Tayari Jones’s great subject is family loyalty. . . . Kin alternates with metronomic precision between her main characters’ first-person narratives. . . . Loyalties and fortitude are repeatedly tested in this immersive drama. Resilience abounds.” --The Wall Street Journal

“Jones’s dazzling novel traces the complex range of the Black experience—rich and poor, queer and straight, blessed and cursed—in the Jim Crow South.” --People

“One of the many pleasures of Kin is how deftly Jones builds the story within the context of the Jim Crow South in mid-twentieth century America. . . . Another novelist might have made these broad social concerns the focus of the story, but Jones foregrounds her characters and lets them navigate these national tensions as naturally and confidently as they move through the streets of Atlanta and Memphis.” —Ron Charles

“Jones’s emotional directness lends her prose a deep warmth. . . . Kin bucks contemporary expectations by hewing to older ones. In doing so, Jones gives the novel the same sense of inevitable tragedy that animates Edith Wharton’s books.” --The Atlantic

“Wise, often side-splittingly funny. . . . [Kin] is a pleasure to read.” --The Minnesota Star Tribune

“Kin is the kind of all-encompassing reading experience I’m always hoping to find: smart and funny and deftly profound. This is Tayari Jones’s very best work.” —Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake

“A triumphant return of one of the most important literary voices today. Vibrant, funny, moving and powerful, Kin is an unforgettable read.” --Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, author of The Mountains Sing

“A riveting and deeply moving portrait of indelible female friendship, found family and finding your way. . . . This gorgeous novel already feels like a future classic.” —Roisin O’Donnell, author of Nesting

“Beautifully written and powerfully compelling. . . . Tayari Jones interrogates social injustice through the lens of personal relationships while exploring the ways in which it shapes those relationships, and she does this in language that is intimate, conversational, and musical all at once.” --Kirkus (starred review)

“Jones delivers a triumphant novel of two motherless girls from rural Honeysuckle, Louisiana, who follow very different paths into adulthood. . . . Throughout, Jones tells her protagonists’ stories with grace, humor, and pathos. Kin is a tour de force.” ­--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Jones deftly coneys the nuances of Southern Black culture in this novel full of depth, pain, and beauty. . . . A tender love song to southern Black families, communities, and female friendships.” --Booklist (starred review)

“Tayari Jones once again stuns with a novel full of uninhibited love. . . . Jones develops her protagonists’ personalities slowly and with nuance, subtly evolving them into characters one just can’t help but root for.” --BookPage (starred review)

“Ambitious and accessible, emotionally challenging without pushing readers away. . . . Kin shows off Jones’s considerable skill through strong pacing and a plot that is emotionally taut without feeling unnecessarily dramatic. Without fail, Jones delivers a brilliant turn of phrase, at turns witty and insightful.” --Shelf Awareness