Dont Cry for Me, Daniel Black
Dont Cry for Me, Daniel Black
List: $23.99 | Sale: $16.79
Club: $11.99

Don't Cry for Me
A Novel

Author: Daniel Black

Narrator: Daniel Black

Unabridged: 7 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/01/2022


Synopsis

Don't miss Daniel Black's next novel Isaac's Song coming January 2025

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK IN ESSENCE MAGAZINE, THE MILLIONS AND BOOKISH

"Don't Cry for Me is a perfect song."—Jesmyn Ward

A Black father makes amends with his gay son through letters written on his deathbed in this wise and penetrating novel of empathy and forgiveness, for fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robert Jones Jr. and Alice Walker

As Jacob lies dying, he begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not met or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know. Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery. Secrets from Jacob's tumultuous relationship with Isaac's mother and the shame he carries from the dissolution of their family. Tragedies that informed Jacob's role as a father and his reaction to Isaac's being gay.

But most of all, Jacob must share with Isaac the unspoken truths that reside in his heart. He must give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited. And he must create a space for the two to find peace. 

With piercing insight and profound empathy, acclaimed author Daniel Black illuminates the lived experiences of Black fathers and queer sons, offering an authentic and ultimately hopeful portrait of reckoning and reconciliation. Spare as it is sweeping, poetic as it is compulsively readable, Don't Cry for Me is a monumental novel about one family grappling with love's hard edges and the unexpected places where hope and healing take flight.

About Daniel Black

Daniel Black is an author and professor of African American studies at Clark Atlanta University. His books include The Coming, Perfect Peace and They Tell Me of a Home. He is the winner of the Distinguished Writer Award from the Middle-Atlantic Writer's Association and has been nominated for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, the Ernest J. Gaines Award,and the Georgia Author of the Year Award. He was raised in Blackwell, Arkansas, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Cindy on February 05, 2022

I enjoyed this book's exploration of a father struggling to accept his gay son, failing to be a better parental figure, and being too late to make amends. It's really easy to simplify people who are homophobic and carry sexist beliefs into one-dimensional antagonists, and it’s especially rare to get......more

Goodreads review by Laura on March 06, 2025

TRIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGERRRRRRRED!!! Don't Cry for Me is a story about a Black Father named Jacob who on his deathbed writes letters to his gay son trying to make amends. They have not seen or spoken in years and Jacob has some things he needs to get off his chest. From stories of his life as a young......more

Goodreads review by Read In Colour on January 21, 2022

Written in the form of letters that make up chapters, Don't Cry for Me is a father's love letter to the son he rejected for not meeting the standard of manhood he set for him. Within the letters, the father explores the examples of what black men were supposed to look like, what they were to do, how......more