If I Survive You

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

‘Kaleidoscopic, urgent, hilarious, revelatory’ Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings
‘An absolute delight to read’ Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People
'A compelling hurricane of a book' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House



A major debut that follows a Jamaican family in Miami navigating recession, racism and Hurricane Andrew.



1979. Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But they soon learn that the welcome in America will be far from warm.


Trelawny, their youngest son, comes of age in a society which regards him with suspicion and confusion, greeting him with the puzzled question ‘What are you?’


Their eldest son Delano’s longing for a better future for his own children is equalled only by his recklessness in trying to secure it.


As both brothers navigate the obstacles littered in their path – an unreliable father, racism, a financial crisis and Hurricane Andrew – they find themselves pitted against one another. Will their rivalry be the thing that finally tears their family apart?


The thrilling linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You pulse with inimitable style, heart and barbed humour while unravelling what it means to carve out an existence between cultures, homes and pay checks. They announce Escoffery as a chronicler of life at its most gruesome and hopeful.



‘A debut so brilliant it stopped me in my tracks … An astonishing, compassionate entrance to the literary scene’ i Newspaper




‘Astonishingly compact and engaging … a dazzling mirror held up to our identity-obsessed time’ Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde




'A much needed new voice’ Percival Everett, Booker shortlisted author of The Trees




'A powerful new writer’ Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby




A most anticipated Book of 2023 in AnOther Magazine, Huffington Post UK and i Newspaper