Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump

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.' '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. 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.Ī BuzzFeed Most-Anticipated Book of the Year But as he discovers, he cannot there is no safe haven for a young black man in this time and place called America. 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. 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. 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.Ĭlaude just wants a place where he can fit. 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 In this alternately witty and heartbreaking debut novel, Gabriel Bump gives us an unforgettable protagonist, Claude McKay Love.

Description A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2020

Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump