Hey friends, and welcome to the Happy Hour with Jamie Ivy Podcasts.

I'm your host Jamie, and I'm so glad you're here.

Each week on this show, I invite a friend to join me, and we chat about

the big things in life, the little things in life, and everything in between.

Happy September, my friends. We have a great show in store for you today.

Esau Makali is back on the show, and it's always a joy to talk to Esau.

In fact, I remember one of the first times I talked to him, he told me I earned a gold star

in that interview. I believe the first time Esau was on was episode 466, and we discussed his

book Reading While Black, which I tell him in the episode today. I just started seminary,

you guys. I'm so proud of myself and also scared out of my mind. One of the books I

professor is telling us to read this year is Reading While Black, and so I felt like

student of the year already, because not only have I read that book, I love that book.

In fact, I think for my class, we don't have to read the whole thing, and I told everyone in class,

this is a book you need to read the whole thing. Well, Esau has a new book coming out next week.

It's called How Far To The Promised Land. One Black family story of hope and survival in the

American South. This book had me flipping pages up to late in the night. I read it this summer.

It comes out next week. This is Esau's story of his life, and more than his story,

it's his family story. In fact, it all starts one night when he entered the phone to learn that

his father had died in a car crash. That begins his journey of looking back in his childhood and

throughout his life, really going through his family history, seeking to understand the community

that shaped him. How far to the Promised Land is a book that questions our two simple narratives

about poverty and upward mobility, a book which the people normally written out of the American

...