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A Novel
by Daniel Black
The beloved author of Don't Cry for Me and Perfect Peace returns with a poignant, emotionally exuberant novel about a young queer Black man finding his voice in 1980s Chicago—a novel of family, forgiveness and perseverance, for fans of The Great Believers and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.
Isaac is at a crossroads in his young life. Growing up in Missouri, the son of a caustic, hard-driving father, he was conditioned to suppress his artistic pursuits and physical desires, notions that didn't align with a traditional view of masculinity. But now, in late '80s Chicago, Isaac has finally carved out a life of his own. He is sensitive and tenderhearted and has built up the courage to seek out a community. Yet just as he begins to embrace who he is, two social catalysts—the AIDS crisis and Rodney King's attack—collectively extinguish his hard-earned joy.
At a therapist's encouragement, Isaac begins to write down his story. In the process, he taps into a creative energy that will send him on a journey back to his family, his ancestral home in Arkansas and the inherited trauma of the nation's dark past. But a surprise discovery will either unlock the truths he's seeking or threaten to derail the life he's fought so hard to claim.
Poignant, sweeping and luminously told, Isaac's Song is a return to the beloved characters of Don't Cry for Me and a high-water mark in the career of an award-winning author.
"Black offers a moving chronicle of a grieving queer Black man reflecting on growing up in Chicago...The writing is lyrical (Isaac adored the 'syrupy cadence' of his mother's voice), and the character portrait takes on greater dimension as Isaac struggles with forgiving his late father. The author's fans will love this tale of hard-won self-acceptance." —Publishers Weekly
"Isaac's Song is an absolutely beautiful book. It's a beautiful song of generational pain and love, a novel that is thrumming with truth and life." —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, New York Times bestselling author of Chain Gang All Stars
"Isaac's Song is a beautiful, all-consuming novel about the complex relationships between fathers and queer sons, loss, grief, identity, friendship and love. I will read anything Black writes." —De'Shawn Winslow, award-winning author of In West Mills and Decent People
"A heartbreaking journey that grips and holds you to the bitter end like a weighted blanket, reminding me of the lyrics from a gospel song, 'We Fall Down but We Get Up,' and try again." —Sanderia Faye, author of Mourner's Bench
This information about Isaac's Song 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.
Daniel Black is an author and professor of African American studies at Clark Atlanta University. His books include The Coming, Perfect Peace and They Tell Me of a Home. He is the winner of the Distinguished Writer Award from the Middle-Atlantic Writer's Association and has been nominated for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, the Ernest J. Gaines Award,and the Georgia Author of the Year Award. He was raised in Blackwell, Arkansas, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
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