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WHEN THE HARVEST COMES

Denne Michele Norris

A Novel

In this heart-wrenching debut novel, a young Black gay man reckoning with the death of his father must confront his painful pastand his deepest desires around gender, love, and sex.
"I got tired of running away from what I should've been running toward."

The venerated Reverend Doctor John Freeman did not raise his son, Davis, to be touched by any man, let alone a white man. He did not raise his son to whisper that man's name with tenderness.

But on the eve of his wedding, all Davis can think about is how beautiful he wants to look when he meets his beloved Everett at the altar. Never mind that his mother, who died decades before, and his father, whose anger drove Davis to flee their home in Ohio for a freer life in New York City, won't be there to walk him down the aisle. All Davis needs to be happy in this life is Everett, his new family, and his burgeoning career as an award-winning violist.

When Davis learns during the wedding reception that his father has died in a terrible car accident, years of childhood trauma and unspoken emotion resurface. Davis must revisit everything that went wrong between them, his fledgling marriage and irresistible self-confidence spiraling into a pit of despair.

In resplendent prose, Denne Michele Norris's When the Harvest Comes fearlessly reveals the pain of inheritance and the heroic power of love, reminding us that, in the end, we are more than the men who came before us.

Denne Michele Norris is the editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, winner of the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. She is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literary publication. An Out100 Honoree, she has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, and the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction, and appears in McSweeney's, American Short Fiction, and ZORA. She is co-host of the critically acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.
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Published 2025-04-15 by Random House

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Denne Michele Norris has written a breathtaking testimony about the boundlessness of love. Each character enters like a light beam, puncturing your soul with joy, heartbreak, and unwavering faith in the ability to right their wrongs before time runs out. This is the arrival of a major new American voice.

A story of becoming yourself that isn't like anything I've ever read. We are still getting the literature we deserve, and Norris takes us further down that road with this brave and powerful novel exploring the freedom we find in the presence of those loves we cannot hide from.

Denne Michele Norris has written a book to sink into, to luxuriate withina book that's generous with the pleasures and comforts of a good story and rich characters, so much so that it's only when you're finished that you realize that you've never before read a story quite like this one.

"When the Harvest Comes is abundant with a kind of grace I'm especially hungry for these days: the possibility that we can mend at least part of what we've torn apart, the chance we're not entirely too late.

French: Ellipsis Editions (Eilean Books)

A tale of redemption and transformation in the face of great obstacles, When the Harvest Comes is a book for anyone who's ever believed they didn't deserve happiness, for anyone whose worldview has been shaped by marginalization, for anyone who's accomplished more than was expected of them. . . . Moving and uplifting.

It's not often I read a book that feels like escapism but reckons with the truest of difficult realities. Romantic, wise and healing, When the Harvest Comes is a rare story. Denne Michele Norris bridges the claimed moralities of Christian love with a truly compassionate, transformational love, showing us what it means to speak those things that are not as though they are. A meditation on forgiveness, true love and destiny that enchants with every line.

This is a book to sink into, to luxuriate withina book that's generous with the pleasures and comforts of a good story and rich characters, so much so that it's only when you're finished that you realize that you've never before read something quite like it.

Aching and resplendent, deeply felt and meticulously imagined, When the Harvest Comes is a song of becoming and reconciliation: of family, of self, of abiding love. It leaves the reader better acquainted with love, courage, and the temerity to imagineand ask formore.

Denne Michele Norris writes with confidence and grace about some of life's biggest concerns: family, love, safety, grief, and most importantly, how to be true to one's self.