"Watkins's prose is effortless and forthright... This is an impressive feat of storytelling... It's a difficult read and a tender story of silences and secrets. It's a novel about coming home, despite that home being broken. And it's a brave triumph of a novel that readers won't forget long after finishing it."
-- The New York Times Book Review

Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Good Morning America * Essence* Esquire * The Root * Bustle * Ebony * PopSugar * Ms. * The Millions

From a stunning new voice comes a powerful debut novel, Perish, about a Black Texan family, exploring the effects of inherited trauma and intergenerational violence as the family comes together to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed.

Bear it or perish yourself. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateteful night in her cousin's outhouse that change the trajectory of her life.

Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean -- the matriarch of the Turner family -- makes and the way those choices have rippled across generations, from her children to her grandchildren and beyond.

Told in alternating chapters, Perish follows four members of the Turner family: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth and the time spent under Helen Jean's thumb; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark and twisted past; Jan, a mother of two who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem, Texas, and all of its trauma behind for good; and Lydia, a woman whose marriage is falling apart because her body can't seem to stay pregnant, as they're called home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother.

This family's "reunion" unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask themselves important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.

Set in vividly drawn Texas and tackling themes like trauma, legacy, faith, home, class, race, and more, this beautiful yet heart-wrenching novel will appeal to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of family and the ways bonds can be made, maintained, or irrevocably broken.

• We started tracking this book on April 21, 2022.
• This book was $14.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 28 times in the past 1,456 days.
• The current price of this book is $12.99 last checked 16 hours ago.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $10.99.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on June 1, 2023.
• This book has been $1.99 one time since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on March 30, 2025.
• This book has been $14.99 4 times since we started tracking it.

• Literature & FictionLiterary FictionBlack & African American
• Literature & FictionUnited StatesSouthern United States

• Publication Date: August 23, 2022
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 331 Pages
• File Size: 33 KB