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In evocative prose, Stephanie Powell Watts has crafted a full and stunning portrait that combines a universally resonant story with an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family.
JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava. But as he reenters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he's startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has. Ava is now married and desperate for a baby, though she can't seem to carry one to term. Her husband, Henry, has grown distant, frustrated by the demise of the furniture industry, which has outsourced to China and stripped the area of jobs. Ava's mother, Sylvia, caters to and meddles with the lives of those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. And Don, Sylvia's unworthy but charming husband, just won't stop hanging around.
JJ's return - and his plans to build a huge mansion overlooking Pinewood and woo Ava - not only unsettles their family, but stirs up the entire town. The ostentatious wealth that JJ has attained forces everyone to consider the cards they've been dealt, what more they want and deserve, and how they might go about getting it. Can they reorient their lives to align with their wishes rather than their current realities? Or are they all already resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead?
No One Is Coming to Save Us is a revelatory debut from an insightful voice; with echoes of The Great Gatsby it is an arresting and powerful novel about an extended African American family and their colliding visions of the American Dream.
"Starred Review. The Great Gatsby is revived in an accomplished debut novel...Watts spins a compelling tale of obsessive love and dashed dreams." - Kirkus
"Watts' lyrical writing and seamless floating between characters' viewpoints make for a harmonious narrative chorus. This feels like an important, largely missing part of our ongoing American story. Ultimately, Watts offers a human tale of resilience and the universally understood drive to hang on and do whatever it takes to save oneself." - Booklist
"Watts powerfully depicts the struggles many Americans face trying to overcome life's inevitable disappointments. But it's the compassion she feels for her characters' vulnerability and desires - J.J.'s belief that he and Ava can work, Ava's ache for a family, Sylvia's wish to be seen and loved - that make the story so relevant and memorable." - Publishers Weekly
"Stephanie Powell Watts's inspired reimagining of the novel long regarded as the American masterwork of the twentieth century gives soul, body, and voice to those left out of Scott Fitzgerald's vision of the American dream... bold, brilliant, and timely." - Sigrid Nunez, author of The Last of Her Kind and Sempre Susan
"A grand debut novel full of characters who come into a reader's mind and heart and never leave. Stephanie Powell Watts is a writer of wondrous skill, imagination and sensitivity, and No One Is Coming to Save Us is a beautiful testament to that." - Edward P. Jones
"Rich with wry and poignant observations on human nature, family, and black experience in America. A powerful - and, in today's world, necessary - perspective on the American dream and the possibility of beginning again." - Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You
"There is wisdom, vital and profound, on every single page of this novel. It's a story about home - what it means to leave and whether you can return, and how it is people in the end who are its beating heart. Absolutely luminous." - Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans
This information about No One Is Coming to Save Us was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Stephanie Powell Watts
Stephanie Powell Watts is an Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University, and has won numerous awards, including a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and the Southern Women s Writers Award for Emerging Writer of the Year. She was also a PEN/Hemingway Finalist for her short story collection We Are Taking Only What We Need.
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