No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts

No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts

*WINNER OF THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL*

*THE INAUGURAL SARAH JESSICA PARKER PICK FOR BOOK CLUB CENTRAL*

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING*

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 WILLIE MORRIS AWARD FOR SOUTHERN FICTION*

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY The Washington Post * Refinery29 * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Bookpage 

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2017 BY Entertainment Weekly * Nylon * Elle * Redbook * W Magazine * The Chicago Review of Books

JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava. But as he reenters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he's startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has. Ava is now married and desperate for a baby, though she can't seem to carry one to term. Her husband, Henry, has grown distant, frustrated by the demise of the furniture industry, which has outsourced to China and stripped the area of jobs. Ava's mother, Sylvia, caters to and meddles with the lives of those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. And Don, Sylvia's unworthy but charming husband, just won't stop hanging around.

JJ's return--and his plans to build a huge mansion overlooking Pinewood and woo Ava--not only unsettles their family, but stirs up the entire town. The ostentatious wealth that JJ has attained forces everyone to consider the cards they've been dealt, what more they want and deserve, and how they might go about getting it. Can they reorient their lives to align with their wishes rather than their current realities? Or are they all already resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead?

No One Is Coming to Save Us is a revelatory debut from an insightful voice: with echoes of The Great Gatsby it is an arresting and powerful novel about an extended African American family and their colliding visions of the American Dream. In evocative prose, Stephanie Powell Watts has crafted a full and stunning portrait that combines a universally resonant story with an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family.

Stephanie Powell Watts is a professor at Bethlehem's Lehigh University. The story Unassigned Territory, which appeared in this book, won the Pushcart Prize and was cited in Best American Short Stories. Two pieces from the book were included in anthologies of Best New Stories from the South. Watts' writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Oxford American, New Letters, Black American Review, and others. She is a former Jehovah's Witness minister with a doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She was born and reared in Lenoir, North Carolina. She was named emerging writer of the year in fiction by the Southern Women Writers Conference.