Moonrise over New Jessup

Minnicks’s debut, the 2021 winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, follows Alice Young, who, in 1957, flees her home in segregated rural Alabama, hoping to join her sister in Chicago. She alights at a rest stop in New Jessup, AL, and is stunned to find that it is an all-Black community. Curious, she stays. The people of New Jessup have no interest in integrating with the white community in Jessup. They want to become a separate municipality—electing their own town council, collecting their own taxes, and running their own schools. Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, a secret leader of the National Negro Advancement Society. This group, headquartered in Washington, DC, promotes separation over racial integration. Alice soon finds she must navigate the town’s politics and walk a fine line between conflicting opinions. Narrator Karen Chilton skillfully uses Alice’s voice to carry the story, capturing the nuances of Alice’s emotions and the conviction of her beliefs.