People Like Us is Jason Mott’s electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.
It was Spring of 2020 and I was on a call with my editor, discussing the manuscript for Hell of a Book, with its unconventional structure and an unnamed main character and everything it explores. We were maybe a half hour into the call when the eternal question came up: “So what’s your next book about?” I try to be honest in life, so I told him the truth: “I don’t really know. But I don’t think these characters are done.” Fast-forward a year and a half—and as the time in America whizzes past: bury George Floyd, shoot a few protestors, burn a fistful of cities, become anti-racist, have corporate America get in on the act, buy Black-owned, have cancer kill T’Challa, storm the Capitol, take a swing at overthrowing a government, deny involvement, wake Lady Liberty up at 5 a.m. with a black eye and blood in her urine, tell her it was all just a bad dream—and I’m sitting on a high-stakes Zoom call wearing my best suit jacket for the camera and my best sweatpants for comfort. To my surprise, I’ve just won the National Book Award for Fiction for Hell of a Book. Hell of a time to be alive. Fast-forward another year and a half—Sidney Poitier and Fred Ward both pass on to greater things, Nic Cage shines in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the American suicide rate hits a record high, DEI has hit its peak and begun to slide, the tide of school shootings rises just short of its all-time high—and I’m in Paris regretting the fact that I never took French while a very polite woman asks me what it was like visiting a northeastern U.S. college a week after a gunman killed several students. I didn’t know what to say. So I drew a line in the sand. “I’d rather not answer that.” After a long moment of Parisian frustration, she decided to take a different approach: “Are you afraid of America?” . . . People Like Us is my attempt to find my answer to that question and, with luck, help you find your own answer.
Jason Mott
© Michael Becker Photography
Jason Mott has published four novels. His first novel, The Returned, was a New York Times bestseller and was turned into a TV series that ran for two seasons. He has a BFA in Fiction and an MFA in Poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary journals, and his most recent novel, Hell of a Book, was named the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, 2021.
