Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Kin,' by Tayari Jones
3/27/202647 min
Tayari Jones’s new novel, “Kin,” follows two orphaned girls, Annie and Niecy, who grow up together in Louisiana in the 1950s. Annie was abandoned as a baby when her mother ran away to Memphis, while Niecy was orphaned when her father murdered her mother. The girls grow up under the shadow of loss, but at the very least they have each other, two “cradle friends” so close they’re practically sisters.
After high school, though, they take different paths: Niecy sets out for Spelman College to try to make a name for herself, while Annie flees to Memphis to seek the mother she never knew. Along the way, each must confront major questions about love and family, including what sacrifices are acceptable to achieve them.
On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin talks about “Kin” with his colleagues Lauren Christensen and Elisabeth Egan.
Other books mentioned in this episode:
“An American Marriage,” “The Untelling” and “Silver Sparrow,” by Tayari Jones
“Clutch,” by Emily Nemens
“This Is Not About Us,” by Allegra Goodman
“Lonely Crowds,” by Stephanie Wambugu
“The Vanishing Half,” by Brit Bennett
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
“Sula,” by Toni Morrison
“Beaches,” by Iris R. Dart
“Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?,” by Lorrie Moore
“Cat’s Eye,” by Margaret Atwood
“The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett
“South to America,” by Imani Perry
“Witness and Respair,” by Jesmyn Ward
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Gilbert Cruz· Host0:29
I'm Gilbert Cruz, and this is The Book Review from The New York Times. On this week's episode, our monthly book club discussion. This time, our host, MJ Franklin, leads a conversation about Kin, the wonderful new novel from Tayari Jones. MJ, over to you.
MJ Franklin· Host0:46
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to another book club episode of The Book Review. My name is MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at The New York Times Book Review, and this week for book club, we're chatting about Kin by Tayari Jones. I'm just gonna lay my cards out on the table and say very early, I love this book. I love this book a lot, and I've been sitting on this book for a while because as editors, we get to read early copies of things, and I've just been so eager to talk about this with other readers. You can check me on that. In January, we published a winter books preview episode, and I mentioned how much I love this book there. But I want to say I'm not alone in my enthusiasm. This book, Tayari Jones's