IMPORTANT: We will be meeting virtually via Zoom @ 11AM EST. Please email info@twentystoriesla.com for the Zoom meeting link!

This month (JULY 2020) we'll be discussing EVERYWHERE YOU DON'T BELONG by Gabriel Bump. We'll talk about the novel's structure, our favorite passages, and what the author is trying to accomplish, among other things! Come meet new book friends!

ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION. FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

* OUR FICTION BOOKCLUB MEETS THE LAST SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH *

BUY THE BOOK online at twentystoriesla.com/mainshop

ABOUT EVERYWHERE YOU DON'T BELONG

AT A GLANCE:

“A comically dark coming-of-age story about growing up on the South Side of Chicago, but it’s also social commentary at its finest, woven seamlessly into the work . . . Bump’s meditation on belonging and not belonging, where or with whom, how love is a way home no matter where you are, is handled so beautifully that you don’t know he’s hypnotized you until he’s done.” —Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review

SYNOPSIS:

In this alternately witty and heartbreaking debut novel, Gabriel Bump gives us an unforgettable protagonist, Claude McKay Love. Claude isn’t dangerous or brilliant—he’s an average kid coping with abandonment, violence, riots, failed love, and societal pressures as he steers his way past the signposts of youth: childhood friendships, basketball tryouts, first love, first heartbreak, picking a college, moving away from home.

Claude just wants a place where he can fit. As a young black man born on the South Side of Chicago, he is raised by his civil rights–era grandmother, who tries to shape him into a principled actor for change; yet when riots consume his neighborhood, he hesitates to take sides, unwilling to let race define his life. He decides to escape Chicago for another place, to go to college, to find a new identity, to leave the pressure cooker of his hometown behind. But as he discovers, he cannot; there is no safe haven for a young black man in this time and place called America.

Percolating with fierceness and originality, attuned to the ironies inherent in our twenty-first-century landscape, Everywhere You Don’t Belong marks the arrival of a brilliant young talent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Gabriel Bump grew up in South Shore, Chicago. His nonfiction and fiction have appeared in Slam magazine, the Huffington Post, Springhouse Journal, and other publications. He was awarded the 2016 Deborah Slosberg Memorial Award for Fiction. He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He lives in Buffalo, New York.

SEE YOU THERE! Questions? Email: info@twentystoriesla.com