In the novel Kin, the character Verneese, known as Nisi, doesn't utter a sound until she's

two and a half years old.

And then her very first word, which comes out clear and unmistakable,

breaks the hearts of the people who hear it. That word is mother, and Nisi doesn't have one.

Her mother is the victim of a murder suicide, so she doesn't have a father either.

From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd.

What Nisi does have is a cradle friend named Annie, a beloved companion since infancy,

left motherless herself by a woman who ran away from her baby and disappeared.

As both girls grow into young women, they share their foundational sorrows,

but also a love for one another

that makes them feel as close as sisters. It's a great story and also a bit of a departure

for writer Tyari Jones, who until this book defined herself pretty strictly as a contemporary

novelist. But when these two characters emerged, born in the waning days of the

Jim Crow South and would not let go of her imagination, she realized she needed to see where their

stories would lead. Tayari Jones is C.H. Candler, professor of English and creative writing at

Emory University, and the new novel is titled Kin. Tayari, welcome back to think.

Thanks for happy me.

So these two characters do have women to take care of them, right?

Nisi's Aunt Irene steps in, Annie's grandmother.

Neither surrogate is exactly maternal.

Both girls are left with this longing for a relationship they've

never had. They can only imagine what it's like to have a mother. And I guess they each build

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