{"product_id":"the-heaven-earth-grocery-store-isbn-9780593684146","title":"The Heaven \u0026 Earth Grocery Store","description":"\u003cb\u003eTHE RUNAWAY \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e NOTABLE BOOK • A \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eREADERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFROM ONE OF \u003ci\u003eTIME\u003c\/i\u003e MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY \u003ci\u003eNPR\/FRESH AIR\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWASHINGTON POST\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTHE NEW YORKER\u003c\/i\u003e, AND \u003ci\u003eTIME MAGAZINE\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We all need—we all \u003ci\u003edeserve—\u003c\/i\u003ethis vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick \u003ci\u003eDeacon King Kong\u003c\/i\u003e and the National Book Award–winning \u003ci\u003eThe Good Lord Bird\u003c\/i\u003e, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 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 \u0026amp; 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to \u003ci\u003eThe Heaven \u0026amp; Earth Grocery Store\u003c\/i\u003e, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as \u003ci\u003eDeacon King Kong \u003c\/i\u003eand as inventive as \u003ci\u003eThe Good Lord Bird\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Heaven \u0026amp; Earth Grocery Store\u003c\/i\u003e: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e“I keep thinking every time I read one of his books, ‘That’s his best book.’ No. THIS is his best book.” —\u003cb\u003eAnn Patchett\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “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.” —\u003cb\u003eHarlan Coben\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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.” —\u003cb\u003eEthan Hawke\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “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.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eThe Heaven \u0026amp; Earth Grocery Store\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the best novels I’ve read this year. It pulls off the singular magic trick of being simultaneously flattening and uplifting.” —\u003cb\u003eNPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] tour de force . . . [a] mesmerizing, moving, almost magical tale . . . [McBride] writes sentences and paragraphs that swing like jazz melodies.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Associated Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “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.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"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.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “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.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTime Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “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.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “McBride . . . would never advance any of his books as candidates for the Great American Novel. . . . I’d like to make a case, though, for \u003ci\u003eDeacon King Kong\u003c\/i\u003e and, now, \u003ci\u003eThe Heaven \u0026amp; Earth Grocery Store\u003c\/i\u003e 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.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSlate\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJames McBride\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e–bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection \u003ci\u003eDeacon King Kong\u003c\/i\u003e, the National Book Award–winning \u003ci\u003eThe Good Lord Bird\u003c\/i\u003e, the American classic \u003ci\u003eThe Color of Water\u003c\/i\u003e, the novels \u003ci\u003eSong Yet Sung \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eMiracle at St. Anna\u003c\/i\u003e, the story collection \u003ci\u003eFive-Carat Soul\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eKill ’Em and Leave\u003c\/i\u003e, a biography of James Brown. One of \u003ci\u003eTIME\u003c\/i\u003e 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.Nate Timblin was a man who, on paper, had very little. Like most Negroes in America, he lived in a nation with statutes and decrees that consigned him as an equal but not equal, his life bound by a set of rules and regulations in matters of equality that largely did not apply to him. He had no children, no car, no insurance policy, no bank account, no business, no set of keys to anything he owned, and no land. He was a man without a country living in a world of ghosts, for having no country meant no involvement and not caring for a thing beyond your own heart and head. The only country Nate knew or cared about, besides Addie, was the thin, deaf twelve-year-old boy who at the moment either was riding a freight train to Philadelphia or was standing ten feet from him and tossing small boulders into the Manatawny Creek. Which one was it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dodo.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was surprise that caused him to utter the boy’s name, for he knew he might as well have been talking to himself. The boy couldn’t hear. Even so, the child was busy, sorting through stones at the riverbank, stacking large ones to make some kind of embankment along the creek’s edge, tossing smaller rocks into the water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNate knelt, relit the lamp, and held it high, waving it to get the deaf boy’s attention. With Dodo, everything was sight, feel, and vibration, not sound. The light cast an eerie glow on the water. Yet the boy was so involved in what he was doing that Nate had to wave the light several times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy saw the lamp’s reflection in the water first, then dropped the rock he was holding, turned to the source of the light, and stood up straight, a thin arm raised in a shy hello as Nate approached.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNate pointed at the rock formation. “What you doing, boy?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDodo smiled. He motioned Nate closer. He drew a wide circle with his arms, demonstrating a circle of rocks, then aped holding a cradle like he was rocking a baby.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Say what now?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy rubbed his hands together, as if creating magic or heat, then cupped his hands to his ear, as if he could hear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You got a hole in your head, son? Was you riding the train this morning? Was that you?” Nate gently touched one of the boy’s hands. They were freezing. He placed the lamp high, holding it so that his lips could be seen. The boy had not been born deaf. An accident killed his hearing. A stove blew up in his mother’s kitchen when he was nine. Killed his eyes and ears. His eyes came back. His ears did not. But he could read lips. Nate held the lamp next to his face so Dodo could see them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What you doing?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy’s eyes danced away, then he said, “Making a garden.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For what?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“To grow sunflowers.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“CJ and them said you was on a train this morning.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDodo looked away. It was his way of ignoring conversation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNate calmly reached out and slowly turned the boy’s head so that the boy faced him. “Was you on that train or not?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDodo nodded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“All right then.” Nate looked about, then pointed to a dogwood tree nearby. “Tear me off a branch from that tree yonder and make a switch. Then come on in the house. Your auntie’ll even you out.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe reached for the boy’s hand, but instead of reaching out, the boy drew from his pocket a folded and wrinkled white piece of paper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNate gently removed it from the boy’s hand and, unfolding it, held it up to the lantern. He read the words slowly, running his eyes across the paper. When he was done, his gaze settled on the boy. “I can’t read fancy words, Dodo. But Reverend Spriggs inside reads good. We’ll ask him to figure them out.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDodo spoke. “I know what it says,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What’s that?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My ma’s dead.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNate was silent a moment. He peered up toward the shed and the house, thinking to himself of all that was wrong in the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You don’t need no paper to tell you your ma’s got wings, son.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Then why I got to leave?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Who says you leaving?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This paper says it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNate gently took the paper from the boy, crumpled it, and tossed it in the creek. The tall man leaned down and tapped the boy’s chest gently. “God opened up your heart when He closed your ears, boy. You got a whole country in there. Don’t fret about no paper. That paper don’t mean nothing.”","brand":"Penguin Audio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302750507237,"sku":"NP9780593684146","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593684146.jpg?v=1767739755","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-heaven-earth-grocery-store-isbn-9780593684146","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}