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Hi, it's NPR's book at the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Today, we're going to hear about two books,

both finalists for this year's National Book Award for fiction. They're both novels, yes, but they're both rooted in very real and at times very

brutal histories. In a bit, author Laird Hunt talks about his book, Zori, about a woman who

lives through the Great Depression and then World War II. There's a stretch where she works in a factory,

painting the faces of clocks and watches using radio, a radioactive substance that finds its way into her body. But first, Robert Jones Jr.'s book, The Prophet, is about enslaved black queer people in America. And as you'll hear him tell NPR Scott Simon, he put put in a ton of legwork, researching their roots, not just of black queerness, but also of homophobia. In the U.S., national security

news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods.

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Robert Jones Jr. says the prophets, his debut novel, came to him in whispers from people whose

stories haven't been told and whose history has often been wiped from the record, black queer

people who were enslaved in America. It is a love story set inside a tragedy. Samuel and Isaiah, two black men enslaved

on a plantation in Mississippi who find love with each other. Robert Jones Jr., a born New Yorker,

who has written for Essence in the New York Times, joins us now from New York. Thank you so much

for being with us. Thank you so much for having me, Mr. Simon.

...