No One Is Coming to Save Us
Stephanie Powell Watts, 2017
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062472984
Summary
The Great Gatsby brilliantly recast in the contemporary South: a powerful first novel about an extended African-American family and their colliding visions of the American Dream
JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina to build his dream home and to woo his high school sweetheart, Ava. But he finds that the people he once knew and loved have changed, just as he has.
Ava is now married, and wants a baby more than anything. The decline of the town’s once-thriving furniture industry has made Ava’s husband Henry grow distant and frustrated.
Ava’s mother Sylvia has put her own life on hold as she caters to and meddles with those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. And Don, Sylvia’s undeserving but charming husband, just won’t stop hanging around.
JJ’s newfound wealth forces everyone to consider what more they want and deserve from life than what they already have—and how they might go about getting it. Can they shape their lives to align with their wishes rather than their realities? Or are they resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead? No One Is Coming to Save Us is a revelatory debut from an insightful voice that combines a universally resonant story with an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—North Carolina
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; Ph.D., University of Missouri
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; Whiting Award; Ernest J. Gaines Award
• Currently—lives in Pennsylvania
Stephanie Powell Watts is an American author, who first novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, was published in 2017. Watts, born in the foothills of North Carolina, received her BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor of English at Lehigh University.
atts won a Whiting Award in 2013 and an Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence in 2012] for her short story collection We are Taking Only what We Need, a book of 11 stories chronicling the lives of African-Americans in North Carolina. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a Pushcart Prize.
Her debut novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, follows the return of a successful native son to his home in North Carolina and his attempt to join the only family he ever wanted but never had. As Ms. Watts describes it, “Imagine The Great Gatsby set in rural North Carolina, nine decades later, with desperate black people.” (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/12/2018.)
Book Reviews
Watts’s book envisions a backwoods African-American version of The Great Gatsby. The circumstances of her characters are vastly unlike Fitzgerald’s, and those differences are what make this novel so moving. No frivolity or superficiality here.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Stephanie Powell Watts's skillful riff on The Great Gatsby … revolves around a contemporary black family in a declining North Carolina town. Which doesn't mean that No One Is Coming to Save Us is some kind of Jay Z Gatsby fantasy.… Watts writes about ordinary people leading ordinary lives with an extraordinary level of empathy and attention.… Watts is interested in what black people are allowed to want — and allow themselves to want — in 21st-century America, and what it takes to venture a real claim for a place, a home.… The ways in which No One Is Coming to Save Us intersects with and veers away from Fitzgerald's familiar plot can be very rewarding…Every departure can be seen as a sly comment on what it means to be a person of color in today's America.
Jade Chang - New York Times Book Review
Watts is so captivating a writer. She’s unusually deft with dialogue.… [The novel is] conveyed in a prose style that renders the common language of casual speech into natural poetry, blending intimate conversation with the rhythms of gossip, town legend, even song lyrics.… An indelible story.
Washington Post
Watts’ lyrical writing and seamless floating between characters’ viewpoints make for a harmonious narrative chorus. This feels like an important, largely missing part of our ongoing American story. Ultimately, Watts offers a human tale of resilience and the universally understood drive to hang on and do whatever it takes to save oneself.
Chicago Review of Books
Inspired by The Great Gatsby, Watts loosely (masterfully, too) retells the American saga from the present day perspective of a once thriving African American community, breathing fresh life into a classic in a way that feels more essential, more moving than the original.
Marie Claire
A deep, moving read.
Real Simple
In her patient yet rich first novel, a Great Gatsby reboot, Watts … takes a beat too long to find its rhythm, but when it does, it hits home — and hard.… [R]elevant and memorable.
Publishers Weekly
This quiet debut novel takes its time, much like the conversations among the various characters, which meander and loop around before reaching their point. The resolution is believable and gratifying without being pat. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal
Watts’ lyrical writing and seamless floating between characters’ viewpoints make for a harmonious narrative chorus … an important, largely missing part of our ongoing American story. Ultimately, Watts offers a human tale of resilience and the universally understood drive to hang on and do whatever it takes to save oneself.
Booklist
(Starred review.) The Great Gatsby is revived in an accomplished debut novel.… Watts' gently told story, like Fitzgerald's, is only superficially about money but more acutely about the urgent, inexplicable needs that shape a life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is this significance of the novel’s allusions to The Great Gatsby? In what way does No One Coming to Save Us both complement and contrast with Fitzgerald’s classic?
2. The novel is written from a number of perspectives: how does that multi-perspective approach help to shape the reading experience?
3. JJ is the lynchpin of the story, but the novel is mostly comprised of female voices. What is the effect of having the central cast made up of mostly women?
4. The mother/daughter relationship between Sylvia and Ava is a fascinating portrayal of intergenerational tension. How is their dynamic presented on the page, and what are the conflicts that threaten their relationship?
5. At the start of the novel, Ava and her husband Henry have been draining their savings trying to conceive for years, and Henry is dealing with cutbacks in his hours at the furniture factory where he works. How do their economic anxieties bleed into their marriage?
6. Sylvia talks to Marcus, a prisoner, after his friends and family have given up on him. Do you think Sylvia is right to have hope for him? Do you think he has a chance at turning his life around?
7. JJ builds an empty dream house, while Sylvia reminisces about the people who once filled her little house. What do houses mean to these characters? What is the difference between a house and a home?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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