JOEL F JOHNSON
NEVER
a novel by
Joel F. Johnson
Coming in 2023 from
Arbitrary Press
Fiction & Poetry
Coming of Age in the Segregated South
Now in his seventies, "Little" Nickerson confronts a childhood he has kept “encased in glass." He narrates a boy’s journey from his suburban home to the textile mills, where workers haggle over the price of a slice of watermelon; to a Black church, where the congregation drums the floor in a thunderous response to a call for equal rights; to a shotgun shack, a book-lined study, and a hidden spring; to a burned-out barn, where men shoot rats, drink beer, and mock the cause of civil rights.
Collected Poems
“Johnson’s poems always sound as if they’re telling the truths that we can’t usually bring ourselves to admit…one debut not to be missed…Tender yet jarring, cerebral yet visceral.” Kirkus Reviews. Published by Antrim House.
Joel F. Johnson
After growing up in Columbus, Georgia, Joel F. Johnson graduated from Harvard, washed dishes in Alta, Utah, and sipped martinis in Manhattan before settling in Concord, Massachusetts. His collection of poems, Where Inches Seem Miles, was selected by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best independent books of 2014. Never is his first novel.
"She came to our house every day, fed me my bottle as an infant, held my hand at the curb, crushed crackers into my soft-boiled eggs. Bit commanded a vital place in our home, mother figure and servant, confidant and cook, a stranger I thought I knew."
