Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize 2023 Southern Literary Review Book of the Year Winner of the 2024 BCALA First Novelist Award Named a Best/Most Recommended Book of January/2022 by the Chicago Review of Books and The Rumpus “I was awestruck by its beauty, rapt by its originality, and astounded by its depth. But what astonished me most was learning that this is a debut. The craftwork is extraordinary. Was this book dreamed into existence? Did the Ancestors themselves place this story in the writer’s mind? From page one, I knew this work would transform me. It expanded the way I imagine what is possible in the art form. More than interesting, it is integral. More than important, it is inspiring. Read this book. Cherish it. Protect it. You must. Right out of the gate, Jamila Minnicks’s Moonrise Over New Jessup is a masterpiece.” —Robert Jones, Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets "My favorite novels light up my brain with things I hadn’t considered before – and this one does exactly that. The deep complexity of the American Civil Rights movement; the various, sometimes opposing approaches of its leaders to desegregation; the gains and inevitable casualties that social progress can claim. With compelling characters and a heart-pounding plot, Jamila Minnicks pulled me into pages of history I’d never turned before."—Barbara Kingsolver "Elegant and nuanced, Moonrise Over New Jessup is an incandescent work of art through-and-through, from a powerful new voice."—Jason Mott, author of National Book Award winner Hell of a Book "An immersive and timely recasting of history by a gloriously talented writer to watch. You will fall in love with New Jessup: the town and the book."—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of The Revisioners “Moonrise over New Jessup is a tender and beautifully written debut that shines light on the untold stories of the women who supported the foot soldiers of the bourgeoning civil rights movement. Warm and affecting, this book will draw you in with its heart.”—Heidi W. Durrow, author of the New York Times bestseller The Girl Who Fell from the Sky "Alice's voice, her witty, generous, keenly observant, utterly compelling voice, will be with me for a long time. And the world of New Jessup that she evokes not just her beloved, Raymond, and his family, but the whole community, each character so vividly drawn, from Miss Vivian to Patience to the ghost of Rosie, who hovers, for Alice, behind so much that too is now part of my lived experience, as well as their struggles to preserve the integrity and autonomy of New Jessup in a period of great transition, to ensure a fully independent thriving Black community it's a complex history I didn't know, and Jamila Minnicks brings it alive so powerfully. This beautiful novel deserves, and I'm sure will find, many readers."—Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl “No one who's read Zora Neale Hurston ever forgets her Eatonville. So too will Jamila Minnicks’s New Jessup live on in the American imagination as both a place and an idea. Moonrise Over New Jessup is a staggeringly beautiful love letter to Blackness particularly southern Blackness that celebrates the joys, sadness, and multiplicity of existence outside the white gaze. An absolute triumph, Moonrise Over New Jessup confirms a major voice in Jamila Minnicks, a writer everyone should be watching.”—Dionne Irving, author of The Islands “The novel delves smartly into the distinction between the fight for equal rights and the fight for integration … Minnicks provides a nuanced and realistic portrayal of the personal costs of fighting for change.”—The New York Times Book Review "An outstanding writer, Minnicks excels at capturing the atmosphere and issues of a specific locale at a particular time, the Deep South at the dawn of the civil rights era. This highly recommended title is an excellent choice for book discussion groups and would make a great movie.”—Library Journal “A warmly appealing book debut” with “impassioned characters. A thoughtful look at a complex issue.” —Kirkus Reviews “Jamila Minnicks has written an unforgettable debut, and announced herself as a writer to watch for years to come.”—Chicago Review of Books, "12 Must-Read Books of January 2023" "A thought-provoking and enchanting debut."—The Rumpus, "The Most Beautiful Books of 2022" “In an evocative and ambitious novel, Minnicks, a former lawyer, presents a fresh look at desegregation in Alabama… Moonrise Over New Jessup triumphs in its quest to offer a provocative perspective on racial justice, sovereignty and joy.”—Ms. “Warm moments of Black joy are well balanced by the weighty tension threaded throughout this debut to create historical fiction worth picking up.”—BuzzFeed “An enlightening look at Black communities in the 1950s and '60s that saw a better future without racial integration… Reading Moonrise Over New Jessup reminds us of the way that history gains a buffed gloss when we condense it into smooth movements. Minnicks' novel keeps us from losing sight of how foggy the path forward actually was.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune “Moonrise Over New Jessup highlights an important part of history while exploring themes of acceptance, independence, and identity… Against the backdrop of a period of racial unrest in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the novel boldly questions the value of integration and acceptance if it means losing the comfort that separation has created… Moonrise Over New Jessup reminds us that history is not a monolith, but is experienced by individuals and communities in different ways, mirroring the conflict and contradictions of everyday life.”—Southern Review of Books “A beautifully written novel that is heavily character-driven and slow-paced, while simultaneously providing enough interest and originality to keep readers turning pages.”—BookReporter “Romantic love, familial love, and the love of place play out against the background of late 1950s – early 1960s civil rights era… A beautifully written exploration of just some of the variety of opinions within the civil rights era Black community on freedom, equality, and safety.”—The Southern Bookseller Review “An absolutely breathtaking debut that celebrates Blackness in all of its triumphs. Both an in-depth exploration of all-Black towns and a love story all the same, Jamila Minnicks has written a stunning and poignant modern classic.”—Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, N.C.—Shelf Awareness, IndieBound “A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel about courageous people at the cusp of historical changes. As compelling as the plot is and as intriguing as the characters are, the excellence of the writing itself should not be overlooked. This is an important book, well-structured with beautifully crafted language. Moonrise over New Jessup deserves a large audience.”—Southern Literary Review "This is a beautifully written and thought-provoking debut."—Book Riot "Minnicks’s acclaimed debut novel scrutinizes the meaning of freedom and the price of change."—New York Times Book Review "Rendered in lush, exquisite prose, Moonrise Over New Jessup revels in the turbulent underbelly of the politics of love."—Electric Literature, "Electric Lit's Best Novels of 2023" "The first-person narration, with its authentic regional dialect, infuses this novel with fresh appreciation for those who struggled for racial equality"—Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y. , Shelf Awareness
★ 01/01/2023
DEBUT In this 2021 winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, getting off a Birmingham-bound bus in the town of New Jessup entirely changes the life of Alice, our heroine and narrator. The year is 1957, and Alice is amazed that this small town in Alabama has no signage for "coloreds only" at water fountains and restrooms. This community has only Black residents and is a well-organized, well-run, prosperous place. There Alice meets and falls in love with Raymond Campbell, the grandson of one of New Jessup's founders and the owner of a successful automotive repair and towing business. Raymond secretly belongs to the National Negro Advancement Society, an organization striving to keep the races segregated and allow Black Alabamians to flourish without the aid of white people. Alice eventually learns that Raymond's local group aims to make New Jessup a recognized municipality, and like the national group, they do not favor racial integration but separation and self-governance. VERDICT An outstanding writer, Minnicks excels at capturing the atmosphere and issues of a specific locale at a particular time, the Deep South at the dawn of the civil rights era. This highly recommended title is an excellent choice for book discussion groups and would make a great movie.—Lisa Rohrbaugh
Karen Chilton’s performance of this debut novel is what happens when an outstanding narrator finds their perfect match in a text. In 1957, Alice Young flees her home in rural Alabama and lands in New Jessup, an all-Black town that has spent generations carving out a place for itself as a safe haven for Black families. There, Alice falls for Raymond Campbell, a man whose organizing efforts are beginning to make waves in a way that Alice questions. Through every twist and turn of this novel, Chilton’s performance provides an intimate understanding of its characters. Her narration captures the emotional turmoil of a young woman who is fighting to keep her newfound home safe for the next generation. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile
Karen Chilton’s performance of this debut novel is what happens when an outstanding narrator finds their perfect match in a text. In 1957, Alice Young flees her home in rural Alabama and lands in New Jessup, an all-Black town that has spent generations carving out a place for itself as a safe haven for Black families. There, Alice falls for Raymond Campbell, a man whose organizing efforts are beginning to make waves in a way that Alice questions. Through every twist and turn of this novel, Chilton’s performance provides an intimate understanding of its characters. Her narration captures the emotional turmoil of a young woman who is fighting to keep her newfound home safe for the next generation. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile
2022-10-12 A Southern community confronts the meaning of Black power.
In a warmly appealing book debut, Minnicks, winner of the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, considers the fraught question of integration from the perspective of an all-Black community in rural Alabama. It’s 1957, and Alice Young is on her way to Birmingham after fleeing abuse in the segregated town where she grew up. Getting off the bus to stretch her legs, she is incredulous to find herself in a place with no “WHITES ONLY signs and backdoor Negro entrances.” New Jessup, she learns, had been established by freedmen who separated from the White community “across the woods,” where they had worked “from field to house and everywhere inside.” Even after Whites tried to run the Black people of New Jessup off the land, they rebuilt and set down roots, started thriving businesses, a school, a hospital, and farms. But, Alice soon discovers, there are troubles: A growing national movement for desegregation has incited dissension. Some in New Jessup agree with the NAACP that integration will be favorable for Blacks; others, that “independence, and not mixing” is a better goal. In New Jessup, the independence movement is adopted by the National Negro Advancement Society, whose aim is “keeping folks from across the woods outta our hair and our pockets for good!” Alice would prefer to distance herself from politics, but she becomes immersed in the controversy when she falls in love with an NNAS activist. How, the NNAS asks, can separation work for Negro communities? Will integration mean equal rights—or merely upending lives for something neither Blacks nor Whites want? What is a viable path to real power? Minnicks’ impassioned characters struggle with those questions as they think about the consequences of court-mandated integration and the reality of living in a society where, Alice realizes, “not all unwelcoming is posted in the window at eye level.”
A thoughtful look at a complex issue.