Travelers

When the boy was four, he asked his father why people needed sleep. His father said, So God could unfuck all the things people fuck up. *LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2020**SHORTLISTED FOR THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE 2020*As America recovers from the Second World War, two families journeys begin. James Vincent, born in 1942 to an Irish-American family, escapes his parents turbulent marriage and attends law school in New York, where he moves up the social ladder as a prosperous and bright attorney. Meanwhile, Agnes Miller, a beautiful black woman on date with a handsome suitor, is pulled over by the police on a rural road in Georgia. The terrible moments that follow make her question her future and pivot her into a hasty marriage and new life in the Bronx.Illuminating more than six decades of sweeping change from the struggle for civil rights and the chaos of Vietnam to Obama s first year as President James and Agnes s families will come together in unexpected, intimate and profoundly human ways.Romantic and defiant, humorous and intellectually daring, Regina Porter brilliantly explores how race, gender and class collide in modern-day America and charts the mishaps and adventures we often take to get closer to ourselves and to home.