A searing novel about a mother and son's fight for survival from the New York Times bestselling author
'Shelter without the grace of welcome is exposure to the worst coldness of the world. Loyalty and the offer of comfort satisfy needs we feel in our bones. In The Unsettled, Ayana Mathis brings these extremes of experience intensely to life. This is a fine, powerful book' Marilynne Robinson
'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
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. Having been 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 determination to fight against systems of racial injustice. As Ava becomes more enmeshed with Cass and the insurgent community he has created in the outskirts of the city, 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 birthright, 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.
About the Author
Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, her first novel and a New York Times bestseller, was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as the second selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. She lives and writes in Brooklyn.
Industry Reviews
Shelter without the grace of welcome is exposure to the worst coldness of the world. Loyalty and the offer of comfort satisfy needs we feel in our bones. In The Unsettled, Ayana Mathis brings these extremes of experience intensely to life. This is a fine, powerful book -- Marilynne Robinson
Ayana Mathis is one of the most brilliant writers working in today's America. A tour de force, The Unsettled is a poetic and fierce study of the conflicts between circumstances and personalities, between dreams and survivals, between the indifference of the world at large and the passions of individuals -- Yiyun Li
The Unsettled crosses generations and landscapes, digs in the Southern soil and walks mean Northern city streets. Expansive and explosive, this beauty of a novel showcases Ayana Mathis's grace on the page, as writer, as storyteller. A book to be read and re-read -- Jesmyn Ward
Poignant, heartbreaking . . . Mathis skillfully and subtly drops allusions to historical events, sending the reader on a kind of intellectual treasure hunt * The New York Times Book Review *
The Unsettled follows Ms. Mathis's debut, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, whose loosely assembled family vignettes also explored the ambivalent aftermath of the Great Migration north. But this is a far better book, more focused and cohesive, and also more alive * The Wall Street Journal *
