Like Trees, Walking

“A breathtaking debut” based on the true story of the modern-day lynching of a black man in the 1980s American south (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

Michael Donald, a young black man living in Mobile, Alabama, was abducted and lynched by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1981. It was the last recorded lynching in America, as well as a shocking awakening for a post-Jim-Crow generation that had been lulled into the belief that virulent, violent racism was a thing of the past. Based on this tragic story, Like Trees, Walking follows the lives of Paul and Roy Deacon, teenagers and childhood friends of Michael Donald, as they cope with the aftermath of his hanging. It is Paul Deacon who discovers the body, and the experience leaves him forever changed.

Readers experience the complexities of the American South—the beauty of the landscape mixed with the ugliness of its racial history—as the characters cope with a tragic chapter in the unfolding story of the New South.

“A deeply humane, pitch-perfect story that exemplifies what fiction does best: it makes us care about one of the too easily abstracted tragedies of our culture.” - Debra Dean, author of The Madonnas of Leningrad

“In lilting and haunting prose . . .Like Trees, Walking . . .[takes] us to a historical moment when African Americans could encounter death for daring to be themselves” - Charlotte Observer

“A gripping tale of evil and injustice, and a fine debut from a talented writer.” —Shelf Awareness