A Million Aunties

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

"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

"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

"A Million Aunties is an elegantly written and emotionally engrossing work of fiction."
—Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize–winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

"A Million Aunties gives us the stories of an unlikely cross-world community brought together by anguish, loss, difference, the healing gifts of art, and above all, the loves of women. Under her deceptively revealing title, Alecia McKenzie recreates Jamaica's enduring traditions in fresh and illuminating ways that make this one of the most avant-garde fictions I have read in a long time."
—Curdella Forbes, author of A Tall History of Sugar

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.