Alecia McKenzie

American-born artist Chris is forced to reconsider his own concept of family during a visit to his mother's Caribbean homeland. Alecia McKenzie's tender new novel [is] an emotionally resonant ode to adopted families and community resilience. --New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice Shortlisted for the 2020 Caribbean Readers' Awards (Best Adult Novel)! Delightfully original, this novel centers Chris, an American who travels to his mother's homeland of Jamaica to reflect and heal after tragedy strikes. What he encounters is unexpected, complicated and, perhaps, just what he needs. --Ms. Magazine Emotional, enthralling and heartfelt...A story of loss and the infinite types of love. --Woman's World Have you ever not wanted a book to end? Were disappointed that the characters are gone from your life? A Million Aunties by Alecia McKenzie is one such novel that makes you yearn for more. --New York Journal of Books Racial identity, nonfamilial relationships, and the restorative nature of art are all explored as McKenzie considers the possibility of regeneration of the human spirit even as we grapple with the tragedies of lost loves and changing worlds. McKenzie successfully integrates various speech patterns in Caribbean patois and a mixture of English and French as she takes readers on a hopeful journey across continents. --Booklist, STARRED review, a Best New Book of the Week Thoroughly satisfying...This bighearted narrative of love, loss, and family is handled with grace and beauty. --Publishers Weekly, STARRED review A Million Aunties is an exquisite novel about beauty and pain, and what binds us together. Through captivating character studies, quiet lovely writing and deceptively simple storytelling, McKenzie illuminates basic commonalities and rethinks what family and home mean. --Shelf Awareness The beauty and brilliance of Blackness in the diaspora take centerstage in Alecia McKenzie's A Million Aunties, showcasing the intricate textures of identity, place, and connection to survive loss. --Colors of Influence Full of wondrous tales of how simple acts of kindness can bring us all together, A Million Aunties is a compelling book about unlikely love, friendship, and community, sprinkled with delightful surprises along the way. --Exclusive Magazine A beautiful book for anyone who knows there is more to family than blood relations. After losing his wife, NYC artist Chris travels to his mother's hometown in Jamaica and contemplates his place in the world. --Book Culture After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother's homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated family. The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways. Told from different points of view, this is a compelling novel about unlikely love, friendship, and community, with surprises along the way.

A Million Aunties

Stories from Yard

Centering on young Jamaican artist and celebrity Dulcinea Evers, this novel begins with her surprising death from what is thought to be cancer—though the real cause is widely suspected to be something else. Her close friend, Cheryl, has one story, but as the narratives of other people in Dulci’s life unfold and shocking details surrounding her are revealed, not even Cheryl’s version turns out to be the whole truth. In the words of Dulci’s angry, disappointed father, her ineffectual mother, the angry wife who came after her with a machete, and the art critic husband whom she used to obtain an American residency permit, Dulci is shown to have been talented, reckless, and fundamentally alone. It is eventually her Aunt Mavis, the solitary and reluctant seer, who finally understands the true challenge of Dulci’s gift. In telling this engaging character’s story as well as the tales of those who knew her, this narrative offers deepening cycles of understanding and the onward thrust of progressive revelation.

Alecia McKenzie

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