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Tuesday, January 7, 2020 Book Release “Everywhere You Don’t Belong” by Gabriel Bump Timelines: 1b: Past Events (Unseen Archive), 4: Gabriel Bump Workshops & Event

Posted at 14:48h in by

Everywhere You Don't Belong - Gabriel Bump
Where:
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center Cinema
341 Delaware Avenue
Buffalo, New York 14202
Date: February 4, 2020
Time: 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Algonquin Books releases Gabriel Bump‘s debut Everywhere You Don’t Belong on February 4th, and Talking Leaves and UB’s Exhibit X are hosting the debut reading on the publication date, before Gabriel starts his national tour.

In his 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.

“This book is astonishing. You’ll be smiling even as your heart is breaking, and you’ll tip willingly into this world Bump offers you, because what appears again and again are spectacular beams of light also called love, also called hope, also called family. Gabriel Bump has established himself as a stunning talent to be reckoned with.” —Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King

Everywhere You Don’t Belong is an early favorite of independent booksellers all across the country. Join us (and a possible special guest–TBA) for this exciting reading and discussion with the author, and help him start his tour with a bang.