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Sign up todayThe New Naturals
Narrator
Robin Miles
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Length
8 hours 52 minutes
Language
English
Critically acclaimed, for readers of Paul Beatty's The Sellout and Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, a moving and darkly funny novel about an attempt to found an underground Utopia.
An abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts doesn't look like much. But to Rio, a young Black woman bereft after the loss of her newborn child, this hill becomes more than a safe haven—it becomes a place to start over. She convinces her husband to help her construct a society underground, somewhere everyone can feel safe, loved, and accepted.
Soon their utopia begins to take shape and attracts the unhoused, the disillusioned, and the spiritually lost. But no matter how much these people all yearn for a sanctuary from the existential dread of life above the surface, what happens if this new society can't actually work?
From an exciting new literary voice, The New Naturals is fresh and deeply perceptive, capturing the absurdity of life in the 21st century. In this remarkable feat of imagination, Bump shows us that, ultimately, it is our love for and connection to each other that will save us.
**A 2023 NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST Notable Book and a BOSTON GLOBE Best Book of the Year**
Gabriel Bump grew up in South Shore, Chicago. He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His debut novel, Everywhere You Don't Belong, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and has won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Fiction, the Heartland Booksellers Award for Fiction, and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association's First Novelist Award. Bump teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Reviews
"The New Naturals explores how grief can become aspiration, how aspiration can become wildness. Bump writes so tenderly about the human error endemic to man-made things---community, partnership, love."—Raven Leilani, author of Luster “A keenly observant work of literary fiction, revealing provocative insights into what happens when ideals, aspirations, and human fallibility collide. I was both gripped and hypnotized by Bump’s distinctive voice, so unique I couldn’t help but reread passages just to relive its poetic cadence. I flew through the pages. I fell in love with characters who not only shared my concerns but hopes and sympathies as well. THE NEW NATURALS is bold, funny, dark and masterful.”
—Oscar Hokeah, author of PEN/Hemingway Winner Calling for a Blanket Dance MOST ANTICIPATED: The Millions * Lit Hub
"A Blithedale Romance for the 21st century, only less naive and more complex. Race, class and gender collide in all the ways they do in the so-called real world. Bump's prose is fresh and frequently surprising. This is funny, sad, sad-funny and funny-sad and just plain smart."—Percival Everett, author of Dr. No “Gabriel Bump's brilliant and surprising novel The New Naturals takes us inside a utopian world and, even more deeply and wondrously, inside the souls of an impressive array of characters. Through them, Bump holds up a mirror to our own grief, longings, and rage in the face of a cruel, crumbling society. Intricate and intimate, Bump's prose is simply masterful.”—Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies "Wry and astonishing … Brisk dialogue and flashes of mordant humor pay off, and Bump cannily grapples with such issues as gentrification, microaggressions, and environmental racism. This is a scalding study in human nature.”—Publishers Weekly “Gorgeous and lyrical… An effecting, experimental tale of race and reinvention”—Kirkus Reviews “Bump captures our contemporary condition with grace… [A] sharp, imaginative novel”—The Boston Globe “[An] ambitious and fascinating premise.”—Literary Hub Included in Fall Preview & Most-Anticipated Lists: New York Times, Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Vulture.com, ELLE.com, The Millions, and Lit Hub “Our booksellers have already devoured it. Bump has a knack for writing stories about human connection that leave us feeling hopeful. This won't be one to miss.”—Epilogue Books (Chapel Hill, NC), USA Today “The New Naturals is a tragicomedy for our times, exploring that age-old question of how to connect with our fellow human beings and build community, even as the world makes increasingly less sense. A tour-de-force, full of heart and asking the big questions about life and the mind.”
—Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of Libertie Expand reviews