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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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THE SON OF MR. SULEMAN

Eric Jerome Dickey

History, hearts, and family secrets collide in this timely and tantalizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author.
Professor Pi Suleman is a black man from Memphis and proud of it. Still, he has to endure a lot as an adjunct professor at the city's prestigious University Along the Nile, a hard-earned career that is crushing his spirit. Pi is constantly forced to bite his tongue in the face of one of his tenured colleague's prejudice and microagressions. At the same time, he's being blackmailed by a powerful UAN professor who threatens to claim he assaulted her; he is unable to reveal that she is actually sexually violating him, trapped in a he-said-she-said with a white woman that, in this society, Pi knows he will never win.

When he meets Gemma Buckingham, a sophisticated entrepreneur who has just moved to Memphis from London to escape a deep heartbreak, things begin looking up. Though they hail from different cultures, their differences fuel a fiery and passionate connection that just may consume them both.

But Pi's whirlwind romance is interrupted when his absentee father, a celebrated author who long ago had an extramarital affair with his mother, passes away, and Pi is called to Los Angeles to collect his inheritance, learn about his father, and face the West Coast family that has never acknowledge him. With the complicated legacy of his famous father to make sense of, Gemma's Visa expiration date looming, and the threats of his colleague becoming increasingly intense, Pi must figure out who he is and what kind of man he will become in his father's shadow.

From Memphis to LA and back again, Eric Jerome Dickey takes readers on an intense - and sensual - journey as Professor Pi Suleman deals with sexual assault and racism, fights being changed by his father's truths, and also discovers untruths Gemma Buckingham has hidden for her own reasons...

Eric Jerome Dickey is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels as well as a six-issue miniseries of graphic novels featuring Storm (X-Men) and the Black Panther.
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Published 2021-04-20 by Dutton Books

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THE SON OF MR. SULEMAN is featured on the books page of Essence's March/April issue! It has the most prominent column on the page and their reviewer writes: "For 25 years, Eric Jerome Dickey's best sellers have made Black women feel seen and, more importantly, understood. From the iconic ladies of 1996's Sister, Sister to the uncon-ventional family in last year's The Business of Lovers, his characters and their adventures never disappoint, even when we revisit them. Losing the 59-year-old writer in January was devastating, but we're beyond blessed that his literary legacy lives on. Dickey's 29th novel, The Son of Mr. Suleman, is full of his trademark humor and vibrantly rendered characters. The book stars Pi Suleman, an adjunct professor in Dickey's native city of Memphis While dealing with a new love, the death of his absentee father and a colleague's falsely accusing him of sexual assault, Suleman is forced to reckon with colorism, racism, infidelity and his own identity. With this page-turner, Dickey once again lives up to his motto: "Writers do."

Dickey's posthumously published novel is a shining example of his skill at combining a compelling narrative voice, sharp social commentary, and poetic prose to create a complex tale featuring sensual characters with truly unique perspectives.

Eric Jerome Dickey is the king of writing Black joy. His characters evoke a sense of esteem for self, showing how they might be if white folks just left them alone. If we could just be our happy, sensual, ambitious, free selves we would be modeling one of his characters. However, this book takes on grief, racism, and microaggressions in a big way, too; it's the first of his works to do so with such detailed intention. Read more...

Eric Jerome Dickey is one of USA Today's "100 Black novelists and fiction writers you should read": Eric Jerome Dickey: Once a software developer and later an actor and stand-up comic, Dickey became a short-story writer, poet and best-selling author. More than 15 of his novels have made USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, including "Friends and Lovers," "Milk in My Coffee" and "Cheaters." Read more...