Delicious Foods: A Novel - Softcover

"A writer of major importance... Moments of deft lyricism are Hannaham's greatest strength, and those touches of beauty and intuitive metaphor make the novel's difficult subject matter easier to bear... The novel's finest moments are... in the singular way that Hannaham can make the commonplace spring to life with nothing more than astute observations and precise language."--New York Times Book Review


"Harrowing... Hannaham details a cycle of despair and enslavement in the poverty-ridden South... What emerges is the powerful tale of a place whose past is 'a ditch so deep with bodies it could pass for a starless night.'"
--The New Yorker


"Delicious Foods has plenty of magic in it, and plenty of tragedy... A powerful allegory about modern-day slavery, Delicious Foods explores the ways that even the most extraordinary black men and women are robbed of the right to control their own lives... [Hannaham] is serious about investigating the long-term effects of internalized racism, and the despair that prevents people from helping themselves... A sharp critique of the American belief that you can do anything as long as you work hard."--Entertainment Weekly


"James Hannaham's satirical and darkly humorous look at racism, drugs, and the American South begins intensely... and doesn't let up... This brutal and beautiful tome is irresistible."
--USA Today


"James Hannaham's new novel is a tour de force. Gripping, haunting, and deeply moving, it beguiles the reader with the urgent immediacy of its characters' lives, while also reverberating with universal themes of freedom and enslavement, love and survival."--Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize winner for A Visit from the Goon Squad


"Bury me with this book, so I will remember how wonderful living was--the food, the words, the stories, the places, the feeling of freedom. Delicious Foods is a magnificent novel, full of beauty a great writer can make of even the most terrifying parts of life."--Rebecca Lee, author of Bobcat


"Delicious Foods is virtuosity on a hire wire--a wild, romping, brilliant plot, capped off with bodacious characters and breathtaking prose. A completely unforgettable, original, and singular novel by a brave, exciting new writer."
--Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow

"A comic novel about family, addiction, and getting in too deep."--O Magazine


"A Southern farm provides the backdrop for a modern-day slavery tale in this textured, inventive and provocatively funny novel... A poised and nervy study of race in a unique voice."
--Kirkus (starred review)


"With its ragged Southern vernacular, clever personification, and horrific opening scene, Delicious Foods is violent and grim, but it's ultimately a reminder of how, amid poverty and addiction, love can prevail."--Out Magazine

WINNER OF THE 2016 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION

WINNER OF THE HURSTON/WRIGHT LEGACY FICTION AWARD

FINALIST FOR THE 2016 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES PRIZE FOR FICTION

NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Kirkus, BuzzFeed, National Post, Kansas City Star

TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly
TOP 15 BOOKS OF THE YEAR: BookPage

Held captive by her employers--and by her own demons--on a mysterious farm, a widow struggles to reunite with her young son in this uniquely American story of freedom, perseverance, and survival.

Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs, and quickly forms an addiction. One day she disappears without a trace.

Unbeknownst to eleven-year-old Eddie, now left behind in a panic-stricken search for her, Darlene has been lured away with false promises of a good job and a rosy life. A shady company named Delicious Foods shuttles her to a remote farm, where she is held captive, performing hard labor in the fields to pay off the supposed debt for her food, lodging, and the constant stream of drugs the farm provides to her and the other unfortunates imprisoned there.

In Delicious Foods, James Hannaham tells the gripping story of three unforgettable characters: a mother, her son, and the drug that threatens to destroy them. Through Darlene's haunted struggle to reunite with Eddie, through the efforts of both to triumph over those who would enslave them, and through the irreverent and mischievous voice of the drug that narrates Darlene's travails, Hannaham's daring and shape-shifting prose infuses this harrowing experience with grace and humor.

The desperate circumstances that test the unshakeable bond between this mother and son unfold into myth, and Hannaham's treatment of their ordeal spills over with compassion. Along the way we experience a tale at once contemporary and historical that wrestles with timeless questions of love and freedom, forgiveness and redemption, tenacity and the will to survive.