Witness
- 240 pages
- 9 hours of reading
‘Brinkley’s sentences are daggers’ RAVEN LEILANI ‘Extraordinary … moving, compelling and virtuosic’ OBSERVER ‘A triumph’ COLIN BARRETT
Jamel Brinkley Book order
Jamel Brinkley explores the complex relationships between characters and the world around them, often focusing on themes of identity, community, and the search for meaning in challenging environments. His prose is known for its depth and perceptiveness, drawing readers into thoughtfully rendered lives and internal landscapes. Brinkley masterfully navigates social realities and psychological insights, crafting narratives that are both unsettling and deeply human. His writing offers a unique perspective on the experiences that shape us, revealing the fragility and resilience of the human spirit.
- 2023
- 2018
A Lucky Man
- 256 pages
- 9 hours of reading
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION In the nine expansive, searching stories of A Lucky Man, fathers and sons attempt to salvage relationships with friends and family members and confront mistakes made in the past. An imaginative young boy from the Bronx goes swimming with his group from day camp at a backyard pool in the suburbs, and faces the effects of power and privilege in ways he can barely grasp. A teen intent on proving himself a man through the all-night revel of J’Ouvert can’t help but look out for his impressionable younger brother. A pair of college boys on the prowl follow two girls home from a party and have to own the uncomfortable truth of their desires. And at a capoeira conference, two brothers grapple with how to tell the story of their family, caught in the dance of their painful, fractured history. Jamel Brinkley’s stories, in a debut that announces the arrival of a significant new voice, reflect the tenderness and vulnerability of black men and boys whose hopes sometimes betray them, especially in a world shaped by race, gender, and class—where luck may be the greatest fiction of all.