RUN IN THE FAM’LY
Jake Robertson, a young Black man snared in the welfare-to-work rut, longs to make a better way for his family. Piecing together minimum-wage jobs and drawing—illegally— on public assistance simply to make ends meet, he hopes against hope for the chance to pull his girlfriend and asthmatic son out of grinding poverty. Upon his father’s release from prison, he is tempted with a crime that could solve his economic woes, but which he fears may fate him to the same life as his father—a man whose past is dark indeed, and about whom Jake has yet to learn one deep, terrible secret.
Narrated in a voice that captures both the raw edginess of the street and the complex rhythms of jazz, Run in the Fam’ly is a stunning work of literary ventriloquism and social analysis. Richly-detailed and filled with vivid characterizations, it plumbs the dark, mysterious depths of the city and the soul, recalling the novels of Dickens, Zola, and Baldwin. It is a father-son story for our time, a riveting human drama that will leave readers, on the book’s final page, both heartbroken and hopeful.
Winner:
Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel
Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction
Steven Turner Award for Best Work of First Fiction
WHERE TO BUY
A portion of the author's royalties benefit Chrysalis, Center for Action & Contemplation, and Matt Talbot Center.
Praise for Run in the Fam’ly
"Run in the Fam’ly proves that John J. McLaughlin is a writer of exceptional talent and enormous vision. His themes are important, his characters are convincing as well as affecting, and his capture of voice dazzling. His writing is infused with unsentimental compassion. I was very moved by this ambitious novel, a marvelous debut."
— Bharati Mukherjee, author of National Book Critics' Circle winner The Middleman
"Run in the Fam'ly is an emotionally detailed exploration of a level of American society rarely seen in fiction... an exceptional work."
— James Alan McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize winner Elbow Room
"John J. McLaughlin writes with great heart, humanity, and fierce compassion. Run in the Fam’ly is a sensitive and probing look at family and poverty, an ambitious debut novel that echoes Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath in its social consciousness, empathy, and exploration of the bedrock that binds us beneath the chasms of circumstance."
—Alexander Parsons, author of Leaving Disneyland, winner of the AWP Novel Award
REVIEWS FOR RUN IN THE FAM’LY
KIRKUS REVIEWS
"A compulsively readable book... McLaughlin delivers stirring imagery, a deeply moving look at American poverty."
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"The story is a dark, twisted tale that emanates from under the bridges, the parks, and the street corners of urban America. It flows from the invisible men and women trapped by poverty in places where dreams and hopes often die swift and violent deaths... It's a story that begins to simmer deep inside."
REAL CHANGE
"Jake's narrative crackles of the hard scrabble streets. There are moments of love, humor, and tenderness...The raw language that permeates this story intensifies the sense of rage, confusion, and desperation that pervades the lives of many poor and marginalized individuals. Jake's truculent journey, limned powerfully by author John J. McLaughlin, is one that deserves attention."
IMAGE JOURNAL
"Ambitious...beautifully and believably drawn...an example of a new American realism that pairs a longing for justice with an understanding of literary craft. The book's landscape, the Flatlands of Oakland, is described in keen and loving detail, giving the weight of a serious social document in the way of Emile Zola or John Updike in the Rabbit books. The work is at once a commentary on the limitations of the American welfare system and the deadening round of urban poverty, and a portrait of the universal psychodrama of fathers and sons, as well as a page-turner. [It] holds out a profound truth as necessary in our age as in any other: that through humility and suffering we meet God."