Temple Folk

This debut collection of ten stories follows Black Muslims as they work through questions of faith, family, and liberty in the United States. Its characters weigh what they believe about race, religion, money, politics, and sexuality, and the book shows a community that turns away from the mainstream ideals it is pushed to embrace while still living in the country where its members were born.

The stories range widely. A dutiful daughter cannot make sense of why her late father's spirit keeps visiting her ("Due North"). A father who briefly tries vegetarianism then recruits his daughter to help him order a double cheeseburger ("Who's Down?"). A mother's routine errand for her disabled son takes an odd turn when she revisits a near-death experience of her own ("Candy for Hanif"). A daughter who suspects her father of cheating starts wearing her hair in public ("Woman in Niqab"). And a federal agent assigned to watch a senior Nation of Islam figure finds his obligations at home pressing harder than his work ("New Mexico").

The author looks steadily at the gap between what these people say they believe and how they behave. Their moral failures are rendered with compassion, nuance, and humor, and the collection suggests that the mistakes people make matter more than the perfection they chase.