Set in the Post WWII South, a dramatic new direction for Jones: narrated entirely by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal.

THE UNICORN WOMAN
by Gayl Jones
Beacon Press, August 2024

Black army veteran named Buddy Ray Guy is a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. He moves around the south, having several women across different states. He recalls his love affairs in post-war France, both in the provinces and in Paris, as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities.

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University, and has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Palmares, a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the recently published The Birdcatcher, a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award.