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Sign up todayThe Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
A Novel
Narrator
Dominic Hoffman
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Length
12 hours 21 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“Depression-era Pottsdown, PA. Immigrant Jews and Blacks who moved from the South cope with discrimination from the White Christian community. Moshe runs an integrated musical theater, assisted by Nate, while his wife Chona runs the local grocery store, assisted by Nate's wife Addie, catering to the black community, in the 'Chicken Hill' neighborhood. Microcosm of the informal economy and great character development...Enjoyed listening on Libro.fm!”
— Pat • Village Square Booksellers
Bookseller recommendation
“Long and winding with the most omniscient narrator ever. These characters, the times they lived through, the country they belonged to, it is all going to stay with me. Utterly engaging story that captures the nuances of being an American. ”
— Kristine • Buttonwood Books and Toys
Bookseller recommendation
“This is a novel about the power of compassion to stir communities of characters to act as their best selves. The beautiful performance of narrator Dominic Hoffman amplifies the warmth in James McBride's memorable story. I'm grateful to have experienced this story through an audiobook. ”
— Laura • Mind Chimes Bookshop
Bookseller recommendation
“Brilliant! A skeleton found in 1972 sets the stage for a story 40 years earlier among the immigrant Eastern European Jews and African Americans in the Chicken Hill neighborhood of Potsdam, PA, who all lived on the fringes of society and were discriminated against. There are many truths about race and prejudice, but also much humor and hope in this exuberant story. ”
— Anne • Newtonville Books
Bookseller recommendation
“This is a lively story about, class, prejudice, the power of the state, and the power of the people. Good reading.”
— Deon • Sunriver Books & Music
Bookseller recommendation
“I fell in love with James McBride's narrative style reading Deacon King Kong. His most recent novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, has confirmed him as one of my all-time favorite authors. McBride creates an intricate tapestry for us, of people, of a community, of the many forms of struggle enveloping his cast of characters. Every thread has a point and as it all comes together, we behold life in its fullness. How will a community of flawed individuals, many with a difficult past, come together to overcome what seemingly invincible institutions and organizations have wrought? How can they help each other, as they struggle with the limitations of their own lives? What do they have to offer, in spite of their many shortcomings? What we find in McBride's story is that even the most challenged among us have something to give, and sometimes what seems to be the smallest of gifts makes all the difference...McBride's tells us that life is hard, that the struggle is real, but that we should not give up. Together, we may prevail.”
— Tamara • The Artsy Bookworm
Bookseller recommendation
“In turns witty, heart-wrenching, and profound - filled with memorable, quirky characters brought vividly to life by narrator Dominic Hoffman, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is James McBride at his best. This is the book I am telling everyone about. Bravo! ”
— Claire • Honest Dog Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Reminiscent of Author's like James Baldwin and John Steinbeck, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a wonderful novel that focuses of racial division, poverty in America, and the importance of community. This was my first time reading McBride, but I will definitely be continuing on to his past works. If you're a character driven reader, I highly recommend checking this one out :) Also, Dominic Hoffman is one of my favorite narrators and his voice was the perfect choice for this novel, almost giving it a timeless quality. ”
— Brittany • Ruby's Books
Bookseller recommendation
“This novel is so wonderful - with characters that imprint in one's mind and heart. McBride does such a good job with (sadly) all the issues of the livelong day - racism, poverty, white supremacy, etc. BUT with such grace and creativity one cannot step away from his story. He's top notch in my book and has been for quite a long time. Don't miss this! ”
— Sheryl • Copperfield's Books
Bookseller recommendation
“This is a humorous, compassionate and insightful novel, and my favorite of 2023 so far! A skeleton found at the bottom of a well, clutching a mezuzah. This is the mystery that McBride puts at the outset of his fabulous new novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. From this opening, McBride populates the world of 1930s Pottstown, Pennsylvania. There, in the Chicken Hill neighborhood, Jews, Blacks and immigrant Whites make their way despite prejudice and corruption from the town’s power brokers. ”
— Mike • A Great Good Place for Books
THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
WINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION
FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE
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, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.
James McBride is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, the American classic The Color of Water, the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill ’Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. One of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2024 and the recipient of a National Humanities Medal, as well as being an accomplished musician, McBride is a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.
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Reviews
Praise for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store:“I keep thinking every time I read one of his books, ‘That’s his best book.’ No. THIS is his best book.” —Ann Patchett
“This is one of those novels that becomes a part of you. It’s a great book. Every character is rich; every detail is rich. I can’t recommend this one highly enough. He’s a great author and I think this is his best work.” —Harlan Coben
“He writes about deep American wounds with love, rage, and a sense of wit that flies like a falcon in large leaping circles, riding the invisible winds of history.” —Ethan Hawke
“With this story, McBride brilliantly captures a rapidly changing country, as seen through the eyes of the recently arrived and the formerly enslaved . . . And through this evocation, McBride offers us a thorough reminder: Against seemingly impossible odds, even in the midst of humanity’s most wicked designs, love, community and action can save us.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is one of the best novels I’ve read this year. It pulls off the singular magic trick of being simultaneously flattening and uplifting.” —NPR
“[A] tour de force . . . [a] mesmerizing, moving, almost magical tale . . . [McBride] writes sentences and paragraphs that swing like jazz melodies.” —The Associated Press
“Classic McBride: He doesn’t shy away from bold statements about the national catastrophes of race and xenophobia, and he always gives us a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. The sugar is McBride’s spitfire dialogue and murder-mystery-worthy plot machinations; his characters’ big personalities and bigger storylines; his wisecracking, fast-talking humor; and prose so agile and exuberant that reading him is like being at a jazz jam session. . . . Reading McBride just feels good—we are comforted and entertained, and braced for the hard lessons he also delivers.” —The Atlantic
"Sharp and nimble and warm as a wool hat, James McBride’s prose seems to transcend all earthly concerns, allowing him to write with compassion, humor and authority." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
“A story of community, care, and the lengths to which we'll go for justice, McBride's tale is a wondrous ode to the strength of humanity in a small town.” —Time Magazine
“Enchanting . . . [a] rich, carefully drawn portrait of a Depression-era community of African Americans and Jewish immigrants as they live, love, fight, and, of course, work.” —The Boston Globe
“McBride . . . would never advance any of his books as candidates for the Great American Novel. . . . I’d like to make a case, though, for Deacon King Kong and, now, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store as better contenders for the 21st-century GAN than many other, more vaunted specimens. . . . In the words of Walt Whitman (an American writer McBride often brings to mind), they contain multitudes.” —Slate Expand reviews
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