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Published Apr 2023
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A father's sudden disappearance exposes the private fears, dreams, longings, and joys of a Black American family in the late decades of the twentieth century, in this page-turning and intimate new novel from the author of The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls.
It's a warm, bright October afternoon, and Ozro Armstead walks out into the brilliant sunshine on his thirty-seventh birthday. At home, his wife Deborah and daughter Trinity prepare a surprise celebration; down the street, his brother waves as Oz heads back to his office after having lunch together.
But he won't make it to the party or even to his briefcase back at his desk. He's about to disappear.
In the days, months, and years to follow, Deborah and Trinity look backward and forward as they piece together the life of the man they love, but whom they come to realize they might never have truly known.
In a gripping narrative that moves from the Great Migration to 1970s Detroit and 1990s New York, we follow the hopes, triumphs, losses, and secrets that build up and tear apart an American family.
"Gray follows three generations of a Black Detroit family in her poignant latest... Along the way, there are plenty of razor-sharp observations ("They calling this a riot? This ain't no riot. It's a uprising. A rebellion," remarks a preacher in 1967). Gray does not disappoint." —Publishers Weekly
"Gray shows the complex natures of these broken characters and how abuse, deceit, and life's struggles are all made worse by racism, poverty, and homophobia. A great pick for book clubs and an essential purchase." —Library Journal
"Riveting, rhythmic, transcendent, Life and Other Love Songs is a stellar family saga. Anissa Gray is a writer to watch." —Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone
"Life and Other Love Songs is a harsh, sometimes haunting, astonishingly moving, exceptionally complex novel about family and music and hurt and fear and pride and love and loss. Anissa Gray tells this story with such grace, insight and precision that readers will think of these characters long after they close the book. This is what writing should be." —LaToya Watkins, author of Perish
"Cleverly structured and emotionally precise, Love and Other Love Songs is a powerhouse ballad about a family whose histories—shared and individual—will pierce straight to the heart. With empathy and insight, Anissa Gray writes an expertly crafted family drama perfect for fans of Celeste Ng." —Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author The Last Romantics
This information about Life and Other Love Songs was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Anissa Gray is the author of the novel The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. She is also an award-winning journalist whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, CNN, and The Cut. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her wife.
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