Brief Description:
"In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe's theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe. As these characters' stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town's white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community--heaven and earth--that sustain us."--

Biographical Note:
James McBride is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Oprah's Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, the American classic The Color of Water, the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, McBride is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.

Review Quotes:
Praise for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

"I keep thinking every time I read one of his books, 'That's his best book.' No. THIS is his best book." -- Ann Patchett

"This is one of those novels that becomes a part of you. It's a great book. Every character is rich; every detail is rich. I can't recommend this one highly enough. He's a great author and I think this is his best work." -- Harlan Coben

"With this story, McBride brilliantly captures a rapidly changing country, as seen through the eyes of the recently arrived and the formed enslaved. . . . And through this evocation, McBride offers us a thorough reminder: Against seemingly impossible odds, even in the midst of humanity's most wicked designs, love, community and action can save us." -- The New York Times Book Review

" The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is one of the best novels I've read this year. It pulls off the singular magic trick of being simultaneously flattening and uplifting." -- NPR

"An entertaining, meaningful story about the community formed when people take advantage of America's opportunities for cross-cultural connection." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Classic McBride: He doesn't shy away from bold statements about the national catastrophes of race and xenophobia, and he always gives us a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. The sugar is McBride's spitfire dialogue and murder-mystery-worthy plot machinations; his characters' big personalities and bigger storylines; his wisecracking, fast-talking humor; and prose so agile and exuberant that reading him is like being at a jazz jam session. . . . Reading McBride just feels good--we are comforted and entertained, and braced for the hard lessons he also delivers." -- The Atlantic 

"Sharp and nimble and warm as a wool hat, James McBride's prose seems to transcend all earthly concerns, allowing him to write with compassion, humor and authority." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A stunning page-turner . . . and an utterly captivating, compassionate story." -- Real Simple

"A story of community, care, and the lengths to which we'll go for justice, McBride's tale is a wondrous ode to the strength of humanity in a small town." -- Time Magazine 

"Enchanting . . . [a] rich, carefully drawn portrait of a Depression-era community of African Americans and Jewish immigrants as they live, love, fight, and, of course, work." -- The Boston Globe

"McBride . . . would never advance any of his books as candidates for the Great American Novel. . . . I'd like to make a case, though, for Deacon King Kong and, now, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store as better contenders for the 21st-century GAN than many other, more vaunted specimens. . . . It's precisely the qualities that might prompt critics to view these novels as 'small' that, paradoxically, make them so big. They are comic novels, ensemble pieces. They lack obvious heroic action. Their focus is intimate rather than sweeping. But in the words of Walt Whitman (an American writer McBride often brings to mind), they contain multitudes." -- Slate

"McBride's pages burst with life. . . . This endlessly rich saga highlights the different ways in which people look out for one another." -- Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)

"The interlocking destinies of [McBride's] characters make for tense, absorbing drama and, at times, warm, humane comedy. . . . If it's possible for America to have a poet laureate, why can't James McBride be its storyteller-in-chief?" -- Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

"Funny, tender, knockabout, gritty, and suspenseful, McBride's microcosmic, socially critiquing, and empathic novel dynamically celebrates difference, kindness, ingenuity, and the force that compels us to move heaven and earth to help each other." -- Booklist (STARRED REVIEW) 

"A compelling novel, compellingly written, and not to be missed . . . McBride takes a mash-up of plots and over a dozen main characters, each with his or her own history, and weaves them together seamlessly with humor, empathy, and a determined sense of justice. . . . [He] ends the novel with so much poignancy and heartfelt sympathy for his characters that readers will be hard-pressed not to be moved." -- Library Journal (STARRED REVIEW)

"[A] tour de force . . . [a] mesmerizing, moving, almost magical tale . . . [McBride] writes sentences and paragraphs that swing like jazz melodies." -- The Associated Press

"When it comes to James McBride, you can always be sure that you're in for a wild and rewarding read. . . . Like The Good Lord Bird and Deacon King Kong, McBride brings a wealth of wit and charm to every page of this novel, as well as a refreshing sense of humanity and optimism for this makeshift community." -- Chicago Review of Books

"McBride appears incapable of writing a book that's not a massive success." -- The Millions

"Powerful." -- Town & Country

"[McBride is] a masterful storyteller who always brings a deep well of humanity and humor to his exuberant, expansive tales." -- LitHub

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