The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023

“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.”—Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review

“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, comes a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

In 1972, a skeleton was discovered at the bottom of a well in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, revealing long-held secrets in Chicken Hill, a neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side. Moshe and Chona Ludlow, residents of Chicken Hill, faced challenges as Moshe integrated his theater and Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state sought to institutionalize a deaf boy, Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor and leader of the Black community, worked together to protect him.

As their stories intertwine, McBride explores the struggles of those living on the margins of white, Christian America. When the truth about Chicken Hill is unveiled, McBride shows that love and community sustain us even in dark times.

With compassion and inventiveness, James McBride delivers a novel as captivating as Deacon King Kong and as imaginative as The Good Lord Bird.