"Race, class, family, and secrets are all on a collision course in Johnson's extraordinarily moving, timely read. Like a heat-seeking missile, her novel hones in on who we think we belong to and why, following the merging lives of Ruth, a black female engineer who seeks out the child she gave away, and Midnight, a young white boy struggling to find his place in the very poverty Ruth managed to escape. A gloriously written, stunning heart scorcher about who we are and what we could be."
-Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World
"A fantastic story of a marriage and what happens when one spouse secretly had a child prior to knowing the other.... This modern-day depiction of a woman in crisis and what she discovers about what she left behind is well-written, timely, and oh-so-memorable."
-Good Morning America
"A profound look at racial and economic injustices in America."
-Refinery 29
"Nancy Johnson's The Kindest Lie is a layered, complex exploration of race and class... Johnson is particularly adept at drawing the dividing lines between African Americans and working-class Whites, while at the same time illuminating the things they share... It is a tale of how lies and omissions can shape and warp us. It is a story about reconciliation, set against a backdrop of racism and resentments. But more than anything, it is a meditation on family and forgiveness."
-Washington Post
"[A] triumph, a deeply affecting work of truth and reconciliation over what it means to live the American Dream-and not just for the winners."
-Los Angeles Times
"[T]imely, layered, and perfect for your Zoom book club."
-HelloGiggles
"Johnson's debut novel will appeal to a wide range of readers, who will be drawn into the despairing lives of her characters. Ruth's predicament comes to a most satisfying conclusion."
-Library Journal
"In this winning portrait of circumstance, sacrifice, and forgiveness, the lines that separate past from present and right from wrong are erased and redrawn--oftentimes with earth-shattering consequences. Rife with rich language, shocking revelations, and easy-to-fall-into characters, The Kindest Lie is the kind of novel you'll feel in your bones."
-Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of The Other Black Girl
"It takes tremendous talent to seamlessly combine social commentary with a powder keg of a plot, and Nancy Johnson accomplishes just that in her gripping debut novel, The Kindest Lie, addressing issues of race, class, privilege and upward mobility... A fictional callback to Isabel Wilkerson's Caste, The Kindest Lie also brings to mind Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, in which another young Black woman returns to her hometown to try to reconcile her past, present and future. Don't miss this powerful debut."
-BookPage, starred review
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