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Title details for The Weight by Jeff Boyd - Available

The Weight

by Jeff Boyd
ebook
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A powerful coming-of-age novel about a twenty-something Black musician living in predominantly white Portland, Oregon, playing in a rock band on the verge of success while struggling with racism, romance, and the legacy of his strict religious upbringing.
Julian Strickland is seemingly the lone Black man in the hipster dreamland of Portland, Oregon. To his friends, he's the coolest member of the scene: the soulful drummer from Chicago in an indie rock band that's just about to break through. But to himself, he's a sheltered Christian homeschool kid who used to write book reports on Leviticus. A virgin until the night of his marriage, divorced at twenty-four, he's still in disarray two years later—pretending to fit in, wondering if any of his relationships are real, estranged from his family, and struggling to reconcile his relationship with God.

Then he meets Ida Blair, a Black painter at the start of a promising career. They begin a tentative relationship, and Ida seems to offer Julian relief from his confusion. But suddenly she stops responding to his texts. Things only get worse when Julian's best friend mysteriously turns on him, his house burns down, and the band considers breaking up on the eve of their most important show yet. It seems the only thing Julian has left—the only thing he's ever had, really—is the weight he is carrying.

Jeff Boyd's beguiling first novel is a piercing exploration of faith, racial identity, love, and friendship—woven of acid humor, disarming vulnerability, and unforgettable poignance.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 11, 2023

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781668007273

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781668007273
      • File size: 4275 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 27, 2023
      In Boyd’s delightful debut, a Black man tries to find happiness in the largely white hipster haven of Portland, Ore. Julian Strickland, 26, the son of a Chicago police detective, works a dull office job, drums in a rock band, and is at loose ends, having just broken up with his girlfriend. At a gig, he meets a beautiful Black painter, Ida, and falls hard for her. Ida, though, is fresh off a breakup herself and isn’t ready for a new relationship. Soon after, the band goes on a West Coast tour, but after returning to Portland, various band members fall out with their girlfriends, Julian glimpses Ida holding hands with someone else, and the turmoil could mean the end of the group just as they’ve signed with a storied indie label. Julian also has several harrowing encounters with the police that leave him vividly imagining his death at their hands, even with his father’s union card in his back pocket. Boyd’s writing is preternaturally wise, and his characters come to life with natural dialogue and brutally honest confrontations. This pulses with the beat of life.

    • Booklist

      April 1, 2023
      Sometimes 26-year-old Julian feels that he's the only Black person in Portland, "the whitest place I've ever lived," his (white) neighbor observes. Consider: Anne, with whom he has a relationship, is white; the three other members of his band, Plaid Parenthood, are white; his coworkers are white ("In Portland, every job was a white person's job"). But then, after Anne rejects him, Julian meets Ida, who is Black, and falls instantly in love until she rejects him. Then Reggie, the 13-year-old-boy (also Black) who lives across the street, rejects him, too. Raised an evangelical ("but I'm trying to get over it"), Julian wonders if God is an angry parent. But there's still the band, which was "my refuge" and "right where I was supposed to be." Things begin to turn around when the band becomes increasingly successful, and one by one, Julian begins to reconcile with his friends. But what about Ida? Boyd writes beautifully about music and does a superb job of creating characters who love it and each other. Readers will want an encore.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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