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Bestselling Author Tayari Jones Overcomes Health Battle and Creative Block to Deliver New Novel, “Kin”
Atlanta, GA – After the resounding success of her 2018 bestseller, “An American Marriage,” author Tayari Jones found herself facing immense pressure and a looming publisher’s deadline. Compounding the creative hurdles, Jones began to experience debilitating symptoms that were later diagnosed as Graves’ disease, a serious autoimmune condition affecting the thyroid. The unknown cause of intense leg pain, persistent itching, and even changes in her handwriting left her feeling adrift, as the initial 200 pages of her new novel for Knopf Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jordan Pavlin simply weren’t gelling.
“This book got me feeling like a clown right now,” Jones confided to a friend, admitting to doubts about her ability to achieve another literary triumph. She described her creative flow as anything but “swinging.”
In a moment of desperation, Jones turned to an empty notebook and began “word doodling,” allowing her pen to wander freely. This unconventional approach unexpectedly birthed “Kin,” a magnificent novel now available and recently announced as Oprah Winfrey’s latest book club selection – a second honor for Jones.
“Kin” was originally conceived as a contemporary novel exploring gentrification in the New South. However, Jones’ creative experiment led her to the fictional 1950s Louisiana town of Honeysuckle, amidst the backdrop of Jim Crow, where her main characters, Annie and Vernice, “introduced themselves.” This shift to historical fiction was initially surprising for Jones, who had exclusively written contemporary works and was skeptical of authors claiming fully formed characters.
Yet, as she continued to write, the narrative threads began to intertwine. Annie’s journey takes her from a sharecropping brothel in Mississippi to Memphis in search of her mother, while Vernice attends Spelman, Jones’ own alma mater.
Jones later surmised that the historical setting of “Kin” might have been an unconscious effort to understand her own parents, particularly her mother, a private individual who was active in the civil rights movement. “I knew very little about her life, and maybe this was my imagination trying to crack the code,” Jones reflected.
The writing process for “Kin” was not without its significant challenges. Amidst her creative endeavors, Jones’ Graves’ disease flared severely, leading to a life-threatening “thyroid storm” that required emergency surgery and daily medication.
Subsequent vision deterioration necessitated a month of radiation. Despite these obstacles, Jones persevered, ultimately completing and submitting her manuscript.
Her editor, Jordan Pavlin, acknowledged the unexpected direction of the novel but lauded its brilliance. “It was as perfect a novel as I’ve ever read,” Pavlin stated, emphasizing that the exceptional quality of the work transcended any initial contractual descriptions.
“Kin” masterfully alternates between the perspectives of Vernice and Annie, employing a rich, vernacular voice that evokes a sense of intimacy and authenticity. Jones’ prose is equally adept at vivid imagery, whether describing a penny-pinching club owner as “tight as a skeeter’s teeter” or a cherished family Bible with “paper, thin as butterfly wings, was heavy with wisdom.”
While Jones drew inspiration from Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” her exploration of friendship in “Kin” is uniquely her own. She describes Vernice and Annie’s enduring bond as a testament to each character being “the keeper of the other’s true self,” highlighting friendship as a relationship requiring constant recommitment.
Now that “Kin” has been released, Jones reflects on its reception with a newfound perspective. Eight years after her previous novel, she states, “I am not ambitious now in the way I was then.
I’ve learned what success can and cannot do for a person. You have to learn to be satisfied.
People say ‘don’t rest on your laurels,’ but what are laurels for?”