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Staff Pick
Winning comparisons to Baldwin and sharing the Southern-inflected lyricism of Faulkner and Jesmyn Ward, Jones Jr.’s debut novel evokes one plantation community with striking clarity and emotional depth. Jones Jr.’s fascinating ensemble cast, grounded in its women and the central love story, and his riveting style combine to make this novel unmissable. Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence
Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man — a fellow slave — seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony.
With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr. fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries — of ancestors and future generations to come — culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets masterfully reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.
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"So powerful and beautiful....A masterpiece." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
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"An inspired and important debut. An ambitious, imaginative, and important tale of Black queerness through history." Kirkus Reviews
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"A masterfully told story that will haunt readers from beginning to end." Booklist (Starred Review)
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"A polyphonic novel, with exactingly rendered characters, about the love between two men enslaved on a Mississippi plantation." Vanity Fair
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"A brutal and beautiful love story between two enslaved men on a Mississippi plantation, a tale of rage and grace, of refuge among the ruins." O, the Oprah Magazine
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"[A] beautifully wrought, exceptionally accomplished queer love story about two men finding extraordinary connection in the most hostile and difficult of circumstances. This debut will be savored and remembered." BookPage (Starred Review)
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"Brims with so much confidence and artful flourish that it's hard to believe it's Jones's first book....Jones's expertly drawn characters have depth and purpose, and the writing is beautiful despite the subject matter." Library Journal (Starred Review)
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"How devastating and glorious this is. Epic in its scale, intimate in its force, and lyrical in its beauty. The Prophets shakes right down to the bone what the American novel is, should do, and can be. That shuffling sound you hear is Morrison, Baldwin, and Angelou whooping and hollering both in pride, and wonder." Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
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"What a rare marvel this book is. The Prophets fashions an epic so rich in erudition, wisdom, clarity, and power, so full of hard-earned yet too-brief joys, that it reaffirms for me literature's place as both balm and scalpel for the mind and soul. You can feel the decades of thinking embedded not only in these sentences but in how they question and build a world shamefully amputated from textbooks. Rarely is a book this finely wrought, the lives and histories it holds so tenderly felt, and rendered unforgettably true." Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
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"The Prophets is easily the most superb tutorial in writing and loving I have ever read. I'm convinced Morrison, Baldwin, and Bambara sat around sipping wine one night, talking about the day we'd read an offering like The Prophets. Robert Jones, Jr., is a once-in-a-generation cultural worker whose art thankfully will be imitated for generations." Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir
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"I've loved the writing of Robert Jones, Jr., for years, and The Prophets is an absolute triumph, a symphonic evocation of the heights and depths of pain, joy, and love." R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
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"In The Prophets, Robert Jones, Jr.'s lens is at once epic and microscopic, equally capable of evoking historical crises and interpersonal ones. Painfully harsh and painfully tender, this inventive, kaleidoscopic love story is a marvel." Helen Phillips, author of The Need
About the Author
Robert Jones, Jr., was born and raised in New York City. He received his BFA in creative writing with honors and MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Essence, OkayAfrica, The Feminist Wire, and The Grio. He is the creator of the social justice social media community Son of Baldwin. Jones was recently featured in T Magazine's cover story, Black Male Writers of Our Time. The Prophets is his debut novel.