If I Survive You

I loved "If I Survive You" because it's a linked story collection that more than justifies its form. Rather than being a fragmented novel or a collection of stories with a very tenuous throughline, Escoffery creates a unified statement while still providing a complete journey within each story. I walked away from this book not only thinking about race, identity, and family but also about legacy—what does success really mean, and who gets to have it?

These short stories centering a Jamaican family in Miami at the end of the twentieth century are mesmerizing.

Each story has a narrative tension that propels towards resolution, as it illuminates irresolvable tensions of race, class, ethnicity, and family in the Southern, Latin, Caribbean crossroads that is Miami. As a native of Miami myself - half “Anglo” and half “Latin” - I saw my hometown in both familiar and novel ways.

The Jamaican Anglo-African cultural context of these protagonists brings many of the absurdities and contractions of Miami’s Anglo/Latin/Black triad into relief as they simultaneously bring into sharper focus what… show more.

Jonathan Escoffery’s debut has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for good reason.

His prose is worth reading merely for its own sake. But the story is invaluable in that he opens up a world that was unknown to me, one of racial ambiguity and prejudice, of the risk-taking and necessities that go along with systemic poverty. He tackles these heavy issues with a strong dose of humor and relatability that made me unable to put the book down.