This is fresh air, I'm Terry Gross. The year is new, and no one yet knows what the best books of

this year will be. But many critics, including our book critic, Marie-Karigan,

agree that one of the best books of 2022 was written by my guest, Jonathan Ascoffrey.

We didn't catch up with him in 2022, but we're going to do that now. Marie's review is what

made me want to read the book. Here's what she said about why he is on her best of list. Jonathan

Ascoffrey is debut collection of eight interconnected short stories overwhelmed me with its originality,

heart, wit, and sweeping social vision. Ascoffrey is aspiring, mostly Jamaican-born immigrant

characters, keep getting knocked down by racism, the 2008 recession, and most literally by Hurricane

Andrew in 1992, which reduces their house to its skeletal frame. But in its larger sense,

the you in the title, if I survive you, is America itself. On quote, Maureen,

like the main character Trolani, Jonathan Ascoffrey is an American-born son of Jamaican parents

who left the island in the 70s and settled in Miami where Ascoffrey was raised. Growing up in

a racially and ethnically diverse city, the character Trolani is never sure who he is. He's considered

brown, not black, but most of the brown students in school are Dominican, a Puerto Rican, and he's

not either. He becomes an aspiring writer, but supports himself doing odd jobs, sometimes creepy,

or unethical ones, and for a while is living out of his car. A lot of that is drawn from Ascoffrey's

life, but Ascoffrey went to grad school and founded the Boston Writers of Color Group, which

currently has more than 2,000 members. He's received grants and fellowships. He's now a Wallace

DeGnafellow, a Stanford University, and attends the University of Southern California's PhD

program in Creative Writing and Literature as a provost fellow. Jonathan Ascoffrey, welcome to

Fresh Air. I really enjoyed your book. I want you to read from the very beginning of the book,

and this is a slightly condensed version of the beginning. Absolutely, and thank you for having me.

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