Father, Father

A Novel

LIST PRICE $27.00

PRICE MAY VARY BY RETAILER

Free shipping when you spend $40. Terms apply.

Buy from Other Retailers

About the Book

The long-awaited, extraordinary first adult novel by the bestselling and beloved children's book author, Jason Reynolds, a timeless and timely road trip novel following two estranged brothers forced together in the wake of their father’s death.

When two brothers set off on a drive from Maryland to Iowa shortly after their father has passed away, they both imagine an awkward ride and uncomfortable silences. Second is younger than his brother, Jesus, by decades, and on his way back to college for his year-end violin recital. Jesus, a profes­sional driver, is delivering a package for his boss and giving his kid brother a ride as a favor to his stepmother. Their father, Danger, was a legendary mechanic, a hero and role model to Second—but for Jesus, the relationship had been strained for years. As the miles tick by and the landscape rolls past their windshield, tensions flare and subside. Secrets are revealed and kept close. But ultimately the two brothers find a kind of peace together, and dis­cover the kinship they previously shared only in name.

This is a novel about grief and the different ways it can manifest; about family by blood and by choice; about imperfect parents and their imperfect love; and about the surprises awaiting any of us after a long ride in the car and a lifetime of misunderstanding. Told in language that is both rich and distinctive, with Jason Reynolds’s stunning flare for form, Father, Father will announce this popular children’s book writer as a master of fiction for adults.

About the Author

Photograph (c) Adedayo "Dayo" Kosoko

Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain’t Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); Twenty-Four Seconds from Now...; and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

Series with Books by the Author

Product Details

  • Publisher: Scribner (June 1, 2027)
  • Length: 208 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781982171759

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

“Father, Father is Reynolds at his best: funny, insightful, tender, and electric. His prose is surprising, wily, and sings, and it’s a heady falling to navigate grief with Danger’s sons. I’m grateful more adults will fall in love with Reynolds’s work now too; the kids been knowing.” —Jesmyn Ward, author of Let Us Descend

“The movement from edges to middle has been beautifully rendered by one of the greatest writers in the world. Jason Reynolds takes this movement, via a road trip with two magnetic brothers, to literary and emotional registers we have never read. The form is as compelling as what’s left unsaid between these gargantuan characters and histories. Father, Father will have all of us seeking the middles of the most haunting and meaningful relationships in our lives. Only literature and Jason Reynolds could do this.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Good, God

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

BACK TO TOP