The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

"James McBride is so talented – as a jazz musician, memoirist and novelist – it’s almost annoying! But this book is so good and so special you have to forgive him. It’s set among fictionalized Black and Jewish residents in Pottstown, Pa., in the 1920s and ’30s, where a Jewish couple runs a theater and grocery store and a Black couple who works for them asks their help to care for a young deaf boy whom the authorities want to institutionalize. McBride somehow intertwines their stories in a way that is intricate and heartwarming without ever being cloying – and that still manages to be hilarious too. At a time when there is so much tension and hatred in the world, this story is a reminder of how love, respect and courage really can overcome evil."

""The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store," by James McBride."