The Bookshelf
New books by Patricia Lockwood, Jacqueline Maley, Peace Adzo Medie and Marco Missiroli
Bye for now.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
Yeah, and I'm Cassie McCullough, and this is the bookshelf where we talk in friendly ways about books, but not always agreeing about them, Kate.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
We'll also meet a fractious family living on a hill above a town in America in the 80s.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
And one day, everything changes.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
That's Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
But we'll begin with two beautiful young men and what happens to them.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
Robert Jones Jr.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
is a black American writer whose debut novel, The Prophets, is already making waves.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
And Robert Jones Jr., who you may have heard speaking to Claire Nicholls this week, has been very clear about his influences, Kate.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
Among them, Toni Morrison, the great American novelist who said, if you haven't found the book you need to read, then you must write it.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
And that's what he says he's done.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
Yes.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
And we get introduced firstly to Isaiah and Samuel, but then to the cast of characters, the inhabitants of Empty, which is what the slaves call the place.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
They've somehow settled on this name because it is just so barren of pretty much everything, but particularly hope.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
So they've called it Empty.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
We do meet primarily the slaves for the majority, I think, of the book.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
And this is a really different take on the plantation story, I think, that we've seen over many iterations, you know, the famous ones, Roots and Twelve Years a Slave.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
These stories of plantations are so familiar now, but rarely do we get the internal world of the slaves presented
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
put up front, often the narrative comes from the top down, which is an inversion here, and that's clearly what Robert Jones is doing.
The Bookshelf
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
We meet a lot of women, actually, after we've met these young men.