In this episode 223, guest hosted by writer, editor, and performer, Alice Osborn, we visit with New York Times bestselling author Jason Mott, author of Hell Of A Book.

In Hell of a Book, an African-American author sets out on a cross-country book tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Jason Mott’s novel and is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: since his novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.

While the book is at once about family, love of parents and children, art, and money, there always is the tragic story of a police shooting playing over and over on the news. Who has been killed? Who is The Kid? Will the author finish his book tour, and what kind of world will he leave behind? Mott says he has been writing this book in his head for ten years.