James McBride on His New Novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
James McBride\u2019s new novel, \u201cThe Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,\u201d centers on the discovery of a skeleton at the bottom of a well in a small town in Pennsylvania. What unfolds is the story of a young Black boy raised by a Jewish woman decades earlier, a story that has been closely held secret among the communities that call the area home. McBride has been writing at the intersection of race, Blackness, whiteness, and Judaism in America since his 1995 memoir \u201cThe Color of Water,\u201d a tribute to his own Jewish mother. He speaks with the staff writer Julian Lucas. \u201cI want to read a book that makes me feel good about being alive,\u201d McBride says. \u201cIf I want the bad things to happen, I\u2019ll just read the New York Times. I want a book to take me to a place that I like to be.\u201d