Description
Book SynopsisBrinkley's sentences are daggers' RAVEN LEILANIExtraordinary moving, compelling and virtuosic'OBSERVERA triumph' COLIN BARRETTAn electric collection of stories set in contemporary New York, from the award-winning author of A Lucky Man and National Book Award finalist, Jamel Brinkley.What does it mean to take action? To bear witness? What does it cost?These stories take us into the heart of contemporary New York City and its residents' lives. We meet children, grandmothers and even ghosts as they strive to connect, to stand up for, and to really see each other. Their relationships shape not only their own futures but those of their families and their city.In its portraits of families and friendships, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in a generation, where strangers sometimes show kindness while those we trustdoctors, employers, siblingstoo often turn away, where joy comes in snatches.With prose as upendingly beautiful as it is artf
Trade Review‘Extraordinary … Confirms Brinkley’s place among the most moving, compelling and virtuosic practitioners of the short form’ Observer
‘Exhilarating … Each story is a gift’ New York Times
‘An important new voice … Taut and convincing’ Guardian
‘Brinkley’s sentences are daggers. He writes about the shifting intimacies of community and love with wit and warmth’ Raven Leilani, author of Luster
‘Virtuosic, fine-tuned and thrillingly assured’ Colin Barrett, author of Homesickness
‘Each story in Witness brings a novel's worth of richness and complexity … Dazzling’ Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose
‘Jamel Brinkley is brilliant, the real thing, a revelation’ Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
‘Stories of rare beauty and insight, that glitter with humour and hurt’ David Hayden, author of Darker With the Lights On
‘Beautiful, original … I will revisit this collection again and again’ Rachel Connolly, author of The Lazy City
‘One of the best story writers we have … A book of psychological acuity, of graceful sentences, of devastation and heart’ Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
'Read Witness and allow yourself the pleasure of seeing the world as Brinkley sees it' Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House
‘There is all the involvedness and complexity of a novel in each story … Brilliant’ Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Wild Laughter
‘Brinkley’s voice is unflinching, his eye panoramic’ Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes
‘One of the finest young writers working today’ Vulture
‘One of the year’s most anticipated works’ NPR
‘Brinkley’s stories carry a rich veneer worthy of such exemplars of the form as Chekhov, Eudora Welty, Alice Munro … A grand master of the short story’ Kirkus
