The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store — the runaway New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2024 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction — is a powerful novel by James McBride, acclaimed author of Deacon King Kong and The Good Lord Bird.

Set in 1972 Pottstown, Pennsylvania, the story begins when a skeleton is discovered in a well, unearthing long-buried secrets from Chicken Hill, a once-vibrant neighborhood where Jewish and Black families lived side by side. There, Moshe and Chona Ludlow—who ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store—and Nate Timblin, a Black community leader, risk everything to protect a deaf boy from being taken by the state.

As their intertwined lives unfold, McBride paints a moving portrait of love, community, and resilience in the face of racism and power. Both a murder mystery and a Great American novel, this heart-blistering and heart-healing story affirms that even in the darkest times, it is our shared humanity that keeps us alive.