The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis

‘[A] powerful book’ Marilynne Robinson ‘A book to be read and re-read’ Jesmyn Ward ‘Poetic and fierce’ Yiyun Li. 

From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia in 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. Estranged from her own mother, Dutchess, and their home in Bonaparte, Alabama, Ava is determined to give her son the chance of a better life. But when Toussaint’s father, Cass, reappears, Ava is swept off course by his charisma and his bold vision for racial justice.

As Ava becomes more enmeshed with Cass and the radical group he has created, Toussaint begins to sense the danger and threat of violence simmering all around him. He begins to dream of Dutchess and Bonaparte, his home and birth right, but can he find his way there? The Unsettled is an explosive and vital story of belonging, legacy and survival from one of America’s most talented storytellers. ‘I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison’ Oprah Winfrey on The Twelve Tribes of Hattie