Kin by Tayari Jones
In Kin, Tayari Jones has written an absolute glory of a novel: one that explores friendship, family, the ties that bind and so much more through the lens of two friends – both motherless girls in the small town of Honeysuckle, Louisiana – and the different paths their lives follow. Niecy, orphaned as a baby and raised by her convention-defying aunt, has her sights set upwards – towards Spelman College and the upper echelons of Black society in 1950s Atlanta. In contrast, her “cradle friend” Annie lights out to the bars and clubs of Memphis in search of the mother who abandoned her as a newborn. Told with joy, wit, and pathos, and wearing its erudition lightly, Kin is a novel to savor and enjoy.
Kin by Tayari Jones, (List Price: $32, Knopf, 9780525659181, February 2026)
Reviewed by Jude, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi
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“There are only so many stories out there—people say seven—but for me, the question is always: what is the question I want to ask?…In Kin, the question I was interested in interrogating is the idea of searching for one’s mother. The classic story tells us, of course you search for your mother. If someone says, I don’t know where my mother is, we frame it as a brave quest to find her. But I wanted to question that impulse. Is it always better to know? Is it okay not to know? Can we learn to be satisfied with not knowing? In real life, people can be satisfied with what they have. In real life, you can marry someone who isn’t the person you once dreamed of and still have a good life. In a story, that’s often treated as an unpardonable compromise. I’m trying to bring into story life the wisdom we already know from real life.”
Last Chance LIVE’s premise was inspired by real-world death penalty reform efforts to raise the minimum age for capital punishment. Last Chance LIVE’s protagonist, Eternity Price, was inspired by a little girl I met during my undergraduate years at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, I volunteered in Head Start classrooms in a West Philadelphia public school, and met a fouryear-old girl whose vivacious spirit deeply impacted me. I spent years contemplating how she was growing up in an impoverished neighborhood right next to an Ivy League university, but she would likely be unable to access most of its privileges and resources—and the trajectory of her life would likely be very different than the lives of most Penn students. To my knowledge, that little girl has not experienced or done anything like what Eternity has, but she and Eternity both grew up in the shadow of power and privilege. My hope for this young girl, and all children, is that they have what Eternity never did—confidence in who they are and what they are worth, and a community that reinforces this truth. I hope seeing America’s reflection in Last Chance LIVE! helps us ascribe more value to these children, and less value to “great television.” 
