boy from braggsville, georgia, who wins a place at the prestigious berkeley university in californial explores the complexities of race, identity and class, be it in the liberal elite in berkeley or in the traditions of the deep south. applause. t geronimojohnson, a very warm welcome to talking books. thank you. you have been compared to some extremely fine authors — mark twain, toni morrison, tom wolfe — and i wonder if that's because you have got the capacity to put a magnifying glass up to american life, with all its foibles, and chronicle it in a very acute way, but also a way that makes us laugh, too. right, i think that may definitely have something to do with it, that's definitely what moves me about a few of the writers that were mentioned there. but it's always felt to me necessary to try to have a breadth of emotional experiences in a novel, otherwise, it can get too heavy. and if it's too heavy all the way through, considering some of the topics i'm dealing with, i don't know that that leaves the reader in a good position to really, like, face forward and think about how w

your most recent book is welcome to braggsville.ve into that kind of rollercoaster, rumbustious novel, i want to begin with your first novel, hold it ‘til it hurts, which is a deeply affecting, tender novel. at its heart, there are two young men, achilles and troy, who were adopted. they are not blood brothers, but they are adopted sons of a white couple, and afghanistan vets — or you would call it in the book "goddamnistan vets". they take two tours together and much of the action takes place in new orleans, your home town. before we talk about the big issues you face, i also want to talk about the family dynamics in the relationship. here we have two young black men, adopted by — i would say a lower—middle—class white family, traditional five acres that they have. tell me how you came to that family dynamic. i wanted to put together a cast of people who were trying to do their best for each other but did not necessarily know how. and so this is what ends up happening with achilles' parents, who don't really know how to prepare him