Palmares

Jones's first novel in two decades reads like a story that has been marinating at least that long. Set in late-17th-century Brazil, with a historical community of escaped slaves as its title and central idea, Palmares is the story of Almeyda, a Black slave girl who takes her freedom, but it has none of the linear structure we might associate with such a story. In keeping with the complex and fluid racial conditions of colonial Brazil, Almeyda's path is meandering and deeply episodic, as faces come in and out of her life and return, as she waits passively and often silently and then, when possible, takes action. Jones doesn't hold the hand of her reader, but she offers the greater gift of immersing you in a time and place utterly unlike ours, but full of its echoes. It's a one-of-a-kind visionary journey.