DMA Arts & Letters Live will welcome James McBride, author of the National Book Award-winning novel The Good Lord Bird, as he returns with The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, a compelling story about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

When workers discover a skeleton at the bottom of a well, it unearths long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans live side by side, sharing ambitions and sorrows. As the characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much marginalized Americans struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community, heaven and earth, that sustain us.

McBride, recipient of the National Humanities Medal, is an accomplished musician and author of numerous critically acclaimed books, including Deacon King Kong, The Color of Water, and Kill ’Em and Leave, a James Brown biography.