A great read - took me a while to get into it but I really enjoyed it.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

Beautifully written, compelling and thought provoking, I was drawn by the cover and blurb, not one I would normally read but I’m glad I did, im recommending this to my book club as I’d love to chat about this to others, thanks to net galley for the advanced copy.

Forrest's "Divine Days" definitely managed to live up to my expectations and to its characterization of "the war and peace of the african american novel"; ambitious and complex, this is a modernist epic.

Excellent read, so happy to have had the chance to read it.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

Henry Louis Gates once referred to Divine Days by Leon Forrest as: "the War and Peace of the African American novel." I've also heard people reference it as similar to the impact of Ulysess by James Joyce. It's no wonder then that when I saw Divine Days is to be rereleased with a new cover I could not wait to read the advanced reader's copy.

Divine Days by Leon Forrest is a massive text with many voices. In it, Joubert Jones has returned home from service in Germany and has a goal to finish his manuscript of a play entitled "Divine Days" where he writes about a local mythological figure in the community called Sugar Groove. The story takes place in the 1960s in Chicago and is set across a 7 day period where as readers we journey along with Joubert and all of the characters he interacts with with working at his Aunt Eloise's bar.

Joubert is an interesting man who engages with the world with literary senses. Divine Days reads like a dream and as readers we are not sure what is real, what is imagined, what is mythological and what is based in memory. Joubert tells the reader: "I've been hearing voices all of my life...since before I can remember. Sometimes these incantations overtake me, speaking not only to me but through me and rendering me up frazzled and daffy."

This is a not a story that is told through a linear plot and it can be easy to get lost in the many different encounters you will make as a reader along the journey with Joubert. In some ways this can be disorienting and in others I think that's the point. There are many literary references made to Shakespeare, Faulkner, music and pop culture references (Malcolm X; Nat King Cole; Ray Charles) and lovers of literature will appreciate these aspects of the story. Overall, the cadence of this book is like nothing I've read before and I really enjoyed that. More than anything it was a refreshing experience to read a book with an almost entirely Black cast centered on Black life.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the e-arc copy!