Kin

by Tayari Jones

13 May 2026

I spotted the hardback of this as a new release on a bookshop shelf and couldn’t resist buying it as I’d really enjoyed An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow by the same author and hoped for more of the same. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a cracking story and well worth reading.

We’re in smalltown Louisiana in the 1950s. Vernice’s mother is killed by her father when she’s a baby and Annie’s mother skips town. Annie’s grandmother ends up bringing up both the girls who regard themselves as “cradle friends”, as close as sisters. The story begins as they are both about to leave town. Annie is off on a road trip to search for her mother who she believes to be in Memphis, and Vernice, who Annie calls Niecy, is heading for college. The treatment of the two Black girls in segregated America is really painful to read in places. Which is as it should be. Being inside the head of Niecy as she accidentally sits in the whites only section of the Greyhound bus and gets treated abominably as a result made me cry. And it wasn’t the only time the book made me cry. So I guess that’s a content warning; it’s not an easy feel-good kind of a read but I’m glad that injustice upsets me. Because it upset me it’s been really hard book to try and write anything down about, but I think it’ll be one that sticks with me for a long time.

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