THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER

BARACK OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK

BOOK OF THE YEAR IN: THE GUARDIAN, NEW YORKER, NEW YORK TIMES, TIME MAGAZINE, HARPER'S BAZAAR, OPRAH DAILY AND WASHINGTON POST

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 neighbourhood where Jewish immigrants and African Americans lived side by side through the 1920s and '30s.

In this novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community - heaven and earth - that sustain us.

By James McBride