Hell of a Book
Jason Mott (2021)
Wednesday, March 18, 1pm
In Hell of a Book, an African-American author sets out on a cross-country book tour to promote his bestselling novel. That story is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.
As the characters’ stories build and build, they converge, and they astonish. This heartbreaking and magical book is about family, love of parents and children, art, and money. It is also, throughout, a tragic story of a police shooting that plays over and over on the news, and a reckoning of what it can mean to be Black in America.
An astounding work of fiction from New York Times
bestselling author Jason Mott, always deeply honest, at times
electrically funny, that goes to the heart of racism, police violence,
and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans and America as a whole.
**See content warnings at bottom of this post.
Resources:
- Author's homepage (including a PDF download reader's guide with discussion questions)
- Discussion questions (from the publisher)
- Interview with the author (after is more recent novel) from the Decatur Book Festival
