Kin
By Tayari Jones
Alfred A. Knopf
On sale Feb. 24, 2026
Kin, an upcoming novel by Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, is a story about two best friends, Niecy and Annie, growing up in a small town called Honeysuckle, Louisiana, in the 1950s.
One urge, when you think of two, might be to compare. Two friends, two life paths. One girl goes to Spelman College; one embarks on a road trip to Memphis. But Jones’ tightly woven story moves quickly beyond such superficial separations. Niecy and Annie, scrambling over and through life’s unexpected turns, never seem to be apart.
The context behind Niecy’s and Annie’s decisions extends beyond their lifespans to tell a tale of epic proportions. Shortly after we meet Niecy’s Aunt Irene, who raises her, we are transported back to Irene’s youth. Women have children and resist having children, and then we see the complicated journeys that led to their own births. None of these characters exists in a fixed state; they are all the lives they’ve lived, all at once.
Another urge, when reading a story about two girls, might be to approach it through a soft lens.
Jones also does away with that framing in short order. People often forget (even I, a woman who was once a girl, forgot), but little girls do indeed experience the world as it is, not through some kind of filter. Niecy and Annie make this clear to the town around them. The magnitude of their grief is frightening, and their impatience for hollow promises is unsettling to the adults who have little more to offer them.
All of this is to say that when this story moved me, it wasn’t out of some feel-good notions of what I should think about girls growing up and their relationships toward the people, especially older women, in their lives. Every emotion seemed like it was being invented in real time. The many times the story broke my heart felt new.
At the origin of Niecy’s and Annie’s bond is their shared lack of a mother. It’s a wound that reverberates and doesn’t close as the years go on. Neither girl has been loved the way that she wants to be. Their ensuing love for each other and themselves is so stunning I was left with a gratitude to have even had the chance to witness it.
It is a love that comes across to me as understanding. Niecy’s and Annie’s narrations of their lives, which alternate by chapter, do not second-guess the depth of what they feel, no matter how far a connection may stretch. They are steady in their belief of their own experiences. And this makes them impossible to turn away from.
Jones introduces us to a dazzling cast of characters, from angelic stranger Carmen to midwife Mrs. Ola Mae and her live-in “friend” Miss Jemison to expert pee-er Babydoll. The world starts off cruel and too big for comfort, indifferent to the dire situations within it. There is no promise of this changing as the story unfolds, just deeper and deeper connections with new and old friends who make the experience bearable, if only for a moment.
Kin reminded me of the importance of poetry in day-to-day life. Not only is each line of storytelling almost a poem unto itself; the ways the characters speak and write to each other, as well as the actions they take, are imbued with poetic flair. Statements carry power through their keen sense of style, dipping freely into philosophical musings on life.
The timing of each element of the story felt extremely thoughtful, like a puzzle coming together from all corners. Jones’ writing gave me chills not just because of what was said, but how it fell on the page.
Kin is a book I am stressed to have only one of, as I already have at least three people I want to lend it to immediately. If you want to meet Annie and Niecy and don’t mind your heart getting carved out of your chest and handed back to you different, get yourself a copy of Kin when it hits the shelves Feb. 24.
