The New York Times Book Review - Tommy Orange
It's an elusive and risky thing to attempt in a literary work: to be funny—especially if you're writing about sad things like trauma and loss. It's the rare book that can achieve an appropriate balance between heaviness and levity, and it's my favorite kind of novel. In his debut, Everywhere You Don't Belong, Gabriel Bump pulls this off not just generously but seemingly without effort. This is a comically dark coming-of-age story about growing up on the South Side of Chicago, but it's also social commentary at its finest, woven seamlessly into the work, never self-righteous or preachy.
Publishers Weekly
11/11/2019
Bump’s astute and touching debut follows young Claude McKay Love, a black child learning to navigate contemporary Chicago’s South Side after his parents’ acrimonious split. Raised by his strong-willed, foul-mouthed Grandma and her best friend, a gay man named Paul, the duo are honest with Claude about his absent parents and needing to make his own way in life. As a teenager, Claude is advised by his grandma to stay far away from the Redbelters, a gang, telling him the members will never get further than the corner they’re standing on. As the Redbelters gain notoriety, Grandma attempts to organize their neighbors to stand up to them, but to no avail: the neighborhood erupts in a standoff between gangs and police, forever transformed by shootings, destruction, and terror. Along with Grandma and Paul, Claude and his close friend Janice try to rebuild their lives after the violence without falling victim to despair. Hoping to leave his broken hometown behind, Claude heads to Missouri for college, where he discovers there’s no way to outrun the past. Bump balances his heavy subject matter with a healthy dose of humor, but the highlight is Claude, a complex, fully developed protagonist who anchors everything. Readers will be moved in following his path to young adulthood. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
A BuzzFeed Most-Anticipated Book of the Year A Electric Lit Favorite Novel of 2020 A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books of 2020 “A comically dark coming-of-age story about growing up on the South Side of Chicago, but it’s also social commentary at its finest, woven seamlessly into the work . . . Bump’s meditation on belonging and not belonging, where or with whom, how love is a way home no matter where you are, is handled so beautifully that you don’t know he’s hypnotized you until he’s done.” —Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review “A witty coming-of-age tale . . . Bump’s first book manages to be both crazy funny—and deadly serious.”—People “This book is astonishing. You'll be smiling even as your heart is breaking, and you'll tip willingly into this world Bump offers you because what appears again and again are spectacular beams of light, also called love, also called hope, also called family. Gabriel Bump has established himself as a stunning talent to be reckoned with.” —Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King “Briskly paced . . . Bump makes his novel debut with hilarious yet ruthless insight. He mixes his observations of the systemic racism and cycle of unrest with the ridiculousness of and unrelenting affection for human nature. There is no time for hand-wringing or self-pity, but even amidst the injustice and fight for survival, there's time for human contact and love.” —Salon.com “Classic bildungsroman, made better by a lot of love for warts-and-all Chicago, and I see dashes of Percival Everett in Bump’s deadpan, how his characters cross the stage with a sashay (and sometimes more). Welcome, Claude! We’re glad you’re here.” —The Paris Review Daily (Staff Pick) “A charming wit infuses Bump’s debut novel . . . Bump’s coming-of-age narrative is propelled by wonderful vignettes with uncannily real dialogue marked by his beguiling humor and insight.” —The National Book Review “[A] pointedly affecting debut novel . . . With deft writing and rat-a-tat, laugh-until-you-gasp-at-the-implications dialog, Bump delivers a singular sense of growing up black that will resonate with readers.” —Library Journal (starred review) "[An] astute and touching debut . . . Bump balances his heavy subject matter with a healthy dose of humor, but the highlight is Claude, a complex, fully developed protagonist who anchors everything. Readers will be moved in following his path to young adulthood." —Publishers Weekly “A sharply funny debut novel that introduces an irreverent comic voice . . . By telling it in short vignettes rather than a traditional narrative, he creates striking images and memorable dialogue that vibrate with the life of Chicago's South Side . . . genuinely hilarious.” —Kirkus Reviews “Everywhere You Don’t Belong is an excellent coming-of-age novel that will make you laugh when you least expect it.” —Shelf Awareness “Bump’s first novel is a clipped and penetrating look at adolescent hope in the face of powerful social forces.” —Booklist “[A] spiraling coming-of-age tale about abandonment and perseverance . . . sparks with originality . . . The ripped from the headlines plot of Everywhere You Don’t Belong draws instant interest.” —Foreword Reviews “In Everywhere You Don’t Belong, Gabriel Bump completely, beautifully, and energetically illuminates the heretofore unrecognized lines connecting Ellison's Invisible Man to Johnson's Jesus’ Son. This is a startling, original, and hilarious book. I look forward to reading it again.” —Adam Levin, author of The Instructions “Sometimes you open a book and you know from the very first page, this thing's alive. You know what I mean? (How often does this not happen? You open a book and it’s just a book?) Gabriel Bump's Everywhere You Don't Belong’s got a racing pulse, and a beautiful propulsion, a ton of humor, wonderful dialogue, deep characterization, and cold-eyed-truth.” —Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown and Others “A brilliant and harrowing debut.” —Noy Holland, author of Bird "Some works you read them and you sense that you will never quite engage life as you did before. Bump is a storyteller at the top of his game, testifying through characters we love and hate, with dialogue so lean, mean and ready, it's explosive. Everywhere You Don’t Belong is a literary blues, raw and rowdy and big and brawling, yet smooth and polished and crafty, a novel that a city like Chicago deserves. Gabriel has achieved here that special confluence of the writer, the craft, and the moment that makes art we cannot afford to ignore, especially at this moment.” —Arthur Flowers, author of Another Good Loving Blues and I See the Promised Land “One solace for living in dark times is they conjure singular new artists like Gabriel Bump whose visions may shepherd us into the light. Everywhere You Don't Belong is a startlingly powerful novel, an unusual concentration of opposing forces—blind rage vs. empathy, comedy vs. tragedy, despair vs. hope—that resists every label it evokes: picaresque, bildungsroman, generational family saga, political novel, comic novel, love story. It’s all of those things at once and much more—an instant American classic for the post-Ferguson/Trump era.”—Jeff Parker, author of Ovenman “Hilarious and so, so tender.” - Electric Literature
Library Journal
★ 10/01/2019
DEBUT "I want to know who I am!" exclaims Claude McKay Love in this pointedly affecting debut novel, which opens in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. Claude is a nerdy, timid outsider, raised by a sharp-tongued grandma from the civil rights movement who will do anything, even burn her beloved Dennis Rodman cardboard cutout, to expunge Claude's unhappiness after his parents vanish, and he's aware that his family expects great things of him, though he doesn't yet know whether he can deliver. Meanwhile, he considers his options, wondering whether he should stay or leave, as any young person might. That should be enough, but the simple act of trying out choices takes on a sharper edge when you're from a community shaped by the legacy of racism and beset by police brutality and street toughs who terrorize the protagonists yet are themselves trying to understand where they belong. After a deadly riot, Claude's effort to find himself carries him to college in Missouri, where he's joined by sort-of girlfriend Janice and works on the student newspaper. Yet he can't escape being defined by others as African American, instead of just as Claude, and again flees violence with Janice toward a place they might belong. VERDICT With deft writing and rat-a-tat, laugh-until-you-gasp-at-the-implications dialog, Bump delivers a singular sense of growing up black that will resonate with readers. [See Prepub Alert, 7/1/19.]—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Kirkus Reviews
2019-12-09
A sharply funny debut novel that introduces an irreverent comic voice.
Bump tells the story of Claude Mckay Love, a young boy who has been abandoned by his selfish parents in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. Raised by his spirited grandmother and her close friend Paul, a lovelorn queer man who suffers tragedy after romantic tragedy, Claude chases affection in a community where yearning is everywhere but real intimacy can be hard to come by. Potential friends, like the gifted basketball player Jonah, come and go, promising affection but always frustrating Claude's hopes. "[My] life went on like that," Claude remembers, "people coming and going, valuable things left in a hurry." Grandma is determined that, despite all this, Claude make something of his life. "I'm not going to lose you. You got something special deep in there," she tells him. But when a street gang-cum-political party called the Redbelters, led by the incorrigible demagogue Big Columbus, instigates a riot after a police killing of a young boy, Claude's entire life is turned upside down. In the riot's aftermath, Claude latches onto journalism as his passion, something that might lift him out of the South Side. It takes him from Chicago to Missouri, but when an old crush and family friend turns up in his college dorm one day, Claude learns that escaping the past is easier said than done. Bump brings a manic yet reflective energy to Claude's story. By telling it in short vignettes rather than a traditional narrative, he creates striking images and memorable dialogue that vibrate with the life of Chicago's South Side. Exchanges like one between Jonah's parents and Paul—over whether New York or Chicago is the mecca of basketball—are genuinely hilarious. The novel is almost devoid of a real plot or anything resembling well-rounded characters and threatens to become repetitive at times. In the end, though, Bump's voice is so distinct and funny that a reader might overlook those shortcomings.
A comic novel that is short on story but abundant in laughs.
