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Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University and has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Corregidora (1975), Eva's Man (1976), The Healing (1998), which was a National Book Award finalist, Palmares (2021), which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and The Birdcatcher (2022), which was also a National Book Award Finalist.
An American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood An important American writer . . . The Healing examines precisely what its title announces: healing from silence, from physical attacks and treachery, from spiritual and cultural isolation, from the pain of old-fashioned, aching, bluesy love . . . It is also a very funny book . . . A moving affirmation of forgiveness and trust . . . The Healing should be cause for hope, sustenance and even celebration - New York Times Compelled by the southern speech and taut, sparring dialogue of the early fiction, [The Healing] has a witty, savvy, sometimes cynical edge . . . As Harlan trawls black culture, Jones slyly combines folksy, vernacular wisdom with discursive flights. Into this fluid pastiche she mixes pop culture - Oprah, Denzel, Tina Turner - with allusions to Chaucer, Henry James, Ralph Ellison, Ishmael Reed . . . the novel's richness lies in its entertaining meandering, and the vitality of its spoken rhythms' - Guardian Gayl Jones's work remains essential and vital; I will be rereading her catalogue for the rest of my life - Nylon One of the most distinguished African American women of letters, Jones offers her first novel to be published in twenty years. It is gripping, beautiful and well worth the wait - Ms. Magazine
