Lyrical, riveting, and haunting from its opening lines, None But the
Righteous is an extraordinary debut that signals the arrival of an
unforgettable new voice in contemporary fiction
**"[A] profound debut novel . . . James captures the simple kindnesses
of a cup of coffee or a shared cellphone as though they were religious
acts. Where a more ponderous writer might lapse into a lengthy stream of
consciousness, James uses short chapters to weave a story of fractured
time and uncharted space into the fabric of life after Katrina . . .
This is a book of faith aching to be claimed, of a land that dares to be
redeemed, of souls searching to be free, of all spirits looking for a
home. It's a metaphysical book deeply rooted in ancient legacies of
subjugation . . . This is a deeply haunted novel that moves with calm
and ruthless determination, like the eye of a hurricane." --The Los
Angeles Times
**
In seventeenth-century Peru, St. Martin de Porres was torn from his body
after death. His bones were pillaged as relics, and his spirit was said
to inhabit those bones. Four centuries later, amid the havoc of
Hurricane Katrina, nineteen-year-old Ham escapes New Orleans with his
only valued possession: a pendant handed down from his foster mother,
Miss Pearl. There's something about the pendant that has always gripped
him, and the curiosity of it has grown into a kind of comfort.
When Ham finally embarks on a fraught journey back home, he seeks the
answer to a question he cannot face: Is Miss Pearl still alive? Ham
travels from Atlanta to rural Alabama, and from one young woman to
another, as he evades the devastation that awaits him in New Orleans.
Catching sight of a freedom he's never known, he must reclaim his body
and mind from the spirit who watches over him, guides him, and seizes
possession of him.
