South End Branch African and African American Authors Book Discussion via Zoom: Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

In Hell of a Book, a Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel, a storyline that acts as the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.

As these characters’ stories build and converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art and money, it’s also about the nation’s reckoning with a tragic police shooting playing over and over again on the news. And with what it can mean to be Black in America.

Who has been killed? Who is The Kid? Will the author finish his book tour, and what kind of world will he leave behind? Unforgettably told, with characters who burn into your mind, Hell of a Book is the novel Mott has been writing in his head for the last ten years. And in its final twists, it truly becomes its title.

Join the discussion here at the scheduled time.