The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel (Penguin Random House, 2023)

James McBride (Photo: Chia Messina)

Marie Arana (Photo: Frank Schramm)

On Sunday, October 1, the 2023 History Book Festival Closing Address featured James McBride, author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel (Penguin Random House, 2023). McBride was in conversation with Marie Arana.

The Closing Address was funded through the generous support of Dogfish Head Beer and Benevolence.

This event was presented in partnership with Seaside Jewish Community and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ).

About the book
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.

Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When state officials came looking for a deaf boy in order to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community — heaven and earth — that sustain us.

About the author
James McBride is the author of four other novels: The New York Times bestseller Deacon King Kong (a selection of Oprah’s Book Club); the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird; Song Yet Sung; and Miracle at St. Anna. He also wrote a story collection, Five-Carat Soul; a biography of soul singer James Brown, Kill ’Em and Leave; and a memoir, The Color of Water. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, McBride is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

Marie Arana, an award-winning author and critic, is the inaugural literary director of the Library of Congress. For many years, she was books editor of The Washington Post, and she has been literary director of the National Book Festival since 2012. Arana is the author of six books, including Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story, featured at the 2019 History Book Festival. Her forthcoming book about the Hispanic population of the U.S., LatinoLand: A Portrait of the Earliest and Least Understood Minority, will be published in February.

Purchase McBride’s earlier books
James McBride’s earlier books may be available at the Lewes Public Library. If you’d like to purchase one of the books, please support Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival, by using the links below.

Please help support local independent bookstores by purchasing this book at Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Online sources and digital versions are tempting; however, supporting local brick and mortar shops helps to preserve our vibrant main streets. Drop by Browseabout, order books online, or call the store at 302-226-2665. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes.

About the Festival
With the help of our presenting funding partners — Delaware Humanities and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices I PenFed Realty — as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2023 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. Our Keynote Address is presented by Sally Mott Freeman and John K. Freeman, and our Closing Address is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.

Special thanks to our program partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library for event promotion and venue; Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival; Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.

Additional thanks to our community partners: ACLU Delaware, Beebe Healthcare, CAMP Rehoboth, Historic Lewes Farmers Market, Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach Historical Society & Museum, Seaside Jewish Community, and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ).