Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, The (PB) - C-format

An instant New York Times bestseller, winner of the 2023 Kirkus Fiction Prize, and Barnes & Noble Book of the Year 2023 from the National Book Award-winning, Oprah Book Club-picked, Barack Obama favourite, James McBride. A murder mystery laced into a community of such grit and heroism that you live this novel rather than just read it. 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 neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. As the story moves back in time to the 1930s and the characters' stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community - heaven and earth - that sustain us. An unforgettable novel about small town secrets.