In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us. Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.
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Exploring the intersections of race, identity, community, and American history through vibrant storytelling and memoir, the literature of James McBride spans award-winning fiction, journalism, screenwriting, and musical composition. His landmark 1996 memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, sold millions of copies, and became an American classic taught widely in schools and universities across the United States. His acclaimed body of fiction includes the National Book Award-winning novel The Good Lord Bird, the Oprah's Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, and The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
Beyond his prose, McBride's multi-faceted career encompasses investigative journalism for major national publications, screenwriting for feature film adaptations, and a long-standing profession as a jazz saxophonist, composer, and songwriter.
A native New Yorker born on September 11, 1957, and raised in New York City public schools, McBride pursued parallel interests in music and writing from an early age. He attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where he majored in communications while studying jazz and composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He later earned his master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. His journalism career included staff writer positions at The Boston Globe, People Magazine, and The Washington Post, with additional publications appearing in Essence, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. In 2007, his National Geographic feature story "Hip Hop Planet" provided an influential examination of African American music and culture.
Alongside his journalistic and literary work, McBride established himself as an accomplished composer and musician. Playing saxophone and piano, he toured as a sideman with jazz legend Jimmy Scott and wrote songs for artists including Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., Pura Fé, and Gary Burton. He also composed music for the PBS television character "Barney" (noting humorously that while he did not write the "I Love You" song, he wishes he did). McBride co-wrote the musical Bobos with playwright Ed Shockley, earning both the Stephen Sondheim Award and the Richard Rodgers Foundation Horizon Award. In 2003, his Riffin' and Pontificatin' musical tour was filmed for a nationally televised Comcast documentary, and he frequently performs public literary readings accompanied by a live band. Self-deprecatingly, he admits to being the worst dancer in African Americana history and jokes that fleas fly out when he removes his hat.
McBride's contributions to American literature and culture have received widespread national recognition. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal "for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America." McBride holds several honorary doctorates and serves as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.
McBride's writing style is characterized by rhythmic pacing, empathetic characterization, historical grounding, and a distinctive blend of warm humor and tragic reality. Drawing directly from his musical background as a saxophonist and composer, his narrative prose often mirrors musical composition, incorporating polyphonic character perspectives, oral storytelling traditions, and authentic vernacular dialogue. His work frequently examines themes of racial identity, heritage, interfaith solidarity, and the resilience of marginalized communities navigating systemic hardship.
Whether chronicling his own family heritage in non-fiction or portraying historical figures and fictional neighborhoods, McBride approaches historical storytelling with a focus on human dignity, ironic humor, and deep community ties. His stories frequently center on tightly knit, multicultural neighborhoods where unlikely alliances are forged across racial, religious, and social lines, illustrating how shared human experience transcends cultural divisions.
