FICTION - JUNE 2021
The Fugitivities Jesse McCarthy
Set in the early aughts, a young film enthusiastturned-teacher as he seeks out the significance of race, nation, and community across a globalizing world. The Fugitivities tells the powerful and singular story of two African-American acquaintances finding their individuality among a society where community means everything. Jonas, an American expat living in France returns to New York to discover it doesn’t fit right. Not wanting to return to Paris, Jonas sets off for Brazil to find the greater meaning of selfhood. There is also, Archibald, a retired American basketball player who uproots his life in Harlem for Paris. What they discover are the limits of individuality, the responsibility to community, and a sense of maturity neither of them could ever anticipate. ‘What a gorgeous, virtuosic novel! In exquisite, often ecstatic prose... this is blackness as it collides with chaos and love. Blackness in its uneasy relationship to Europe and the Americas. Blackness in all of its inner intricacy, tension and beauty’ Namwali Serpell, author of The Old Drift
10th June 2021 - 9781612198064 - £20.00 - 288pp - HB Fiction - Territory: WORLD - Ebook: 9781612198071 Jesse McCarthy has written for several publications including The New York Times, n+1, and the New Republic. He is a contributing editor at The Point and is an associate professor of English, African American, and African History at Harvard.
18
