People Like Us
Books | Fiction / Literary
4
Jason Mott
The riveting new novel by the author of the 2021 National Book Award winner and bestseller, Hell of a Book People Like Us is Jason Mott’s electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dream-like experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt. In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds. People Like Us is wickedly funny and achingly sad all at once. It is an utter triumph bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. This book contains characters experiencing deep loss and longing; it also is buoyed by riotous humor and characters who share the deepest love. It is the newest creation of a writer whose work amazes, delivering something utterly new yet instantly recognizable as a Jason Mott novel. Finishing the novel will leave you absolutely breathless and at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us.
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More Details:
Author
Jason Mott
Pages
384
Publisher
Random House
Published Date
2025-08-05
ISBN
9798217157945
Community ReviewsSee all
"Hard to describe or define the book “People Like Us” or my feelings while reading it. I’ve been a tremendous fan of Jason Mott since his book “The Returned.” This book takes us on quite a trip alongside two Black men, Soot and the narrator, both authors speaking to audiences, one right after a school shooting and the other in Europe on a book tour, visiting towns and countries not their own. No matter where the two men go, however, they face the uniquely American epidemic of gun love and the predictable violence that accompanies guns. Through the equivalent of fever dreams, time travel and magical realism, the characters face joy, humor, fear and sadness as Mott weaves guns, Blackness and the feeling of otherness into their lives and regrets. In one section particularly, Mott walks us through the absence of words and language to describe fully how horrible it is to lose a loved one to gun violence and still have to wake up every day to live, love, smile and cry. The section blew me away."
Diane Morello
