Tayari Jones’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/books/review/kin-tayari-jones.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new novel, “Kin,”</a> follows two orphaned girls, Annie and Niecy, who grow up together in Louisiana in the 1950s. Annie was abandoned as a baby when her mother ran away to Memphis, while Niecy was orphaned when her father murdered her mother. The girls grow up under the shadow of loss, but at the very least they have each other, two “cradle friends” so close they’re practically sisters.
After high school, though, they take different paths: Niecy sets out for Spelman College to try to make a name for herself, while Annie flees to Memphis to seek the mother she never knew. Along the way, each must confront major questions about love and family, including what sacrifices are acceptable to achieve them.
On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin talks about “Kin” with his colleagues Lauren Christensen and Elisabeth Egan.
Other books mentioned in this episode:
“An American Marriage,” “The Untelling” and “Silver Sparrow,” by Tayari Jones
“Clutch,” by Emily Nemens
“This Is Not About Us,” by Allegra Goodman
“Lonely Crowds,” by Stephanie Wambugu
“The Vanishing Half,” by Brit Bennett
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
“Sula,” by Toni Morrison
“Beaches,” by Iris R. Dart
“Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?,” by Lorrie Moore
“Cat’s Eye,” by Margaret Atwood
“The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett
“South to America,” by Imani Perry
“Witness and Respair,” by Jesmyn Ward
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