EARLY PRAISE & REVIEWS

“All at once Kevin Sack's Mother Emanuel is harrowing, despairing and inspiring. From a moment by moment account of the evening of the massacre to a final, brilliant discussion of the meaning of forgiveness in Christianity and other traditions, Sack writes lyrically, from deep research, and with an unforgettable message about tragedy and resilience not only in that horrible summer of 2015 but over 200 years of this famous church. The book is both a modern psalm and a testimony, a work of scholarship and a cry in the night. Sack brings a journalist's sense of granular detail and a historian's grasp of a deep history over time to this painful subject.  It is a religious story about flawed and heroic people full of grace and a city and a country tortured by hatred, exploitation, and murder.  But Mother Emanuel still lives, perhaps stronger than ever on Calhoun Street, an institution no variation on the Confederacy can ever kill.” — David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of History and African American Studies, Yale University, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

"Mother Emanuel is more than an account of an historic church in Charleston and a horrific day on June 17, 2015. In Kevin Sack’s hands, Dylann Roof’s callous murder of nine people during Bible study opens a window into the power of the Black Church in an historic city in the American South. Race, religion, and terror combine for an extraordinary story of America, the resilience of a people, and their capacity to forgive in order to live with unimaginable grief.  A powerful book – especially for times such as these." — Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., James S. McDonnell Distinguished Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University, and author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

"This brilliant work of American history is also a whodunit. It opens with a horrific crime – a young white supremacist strolls into Charleston’s historic African American church and opens fire on a peaceful Bible study class, slaying nine. Decent people react with shock and horror: “How could this happen here?”  And, later, in disbelief: "Why are the survivors forgiving the shooter?"  In Mother Emanuel, Kevin Sack offers a deeply researched, eloquent page-turner of an answer to both questions, taking us from colonization and the African slave trade to modern times. Along the way, we feel the myriad ways the past still weighs on us, and we meet visionaries inspired by a more generous Bible, and a more democratic America, than the ones they inherited." — Melissa Fay Greene, author of Praying For Sheetrock and The Temple Bombing 

“This book shook me with its power and beauty. Kevin Sack tells the story of a moment of racial terror that turned into an opportunity for grace — and from that terrible story produces an insightful and inspiring work of history. Mother Emanuel is a book of enormous ambition, meticulously researched, gorgeously written, and deeply fulfilling.” — Jonathan Eig, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for King: A Life

“Mother Emanuel begins as the tale of a vicious crime and a forgiving church, but turns into an epic story of Black life and becoming that spans 200 years. Beautifully written, a marvel of research, the book is set in one of the old corners of the South, peopled with 100 personalities and filled with as many subplots. Kevin Sack renders a portrait of Black Americans in every generation since the Revolution. Big in historical scale but granular in personal detail, Mother Emanuel transcends the church of its title and the crime that made it famous. It feels like a monument to Black America that takes the form of a book.”
— Edward Ball, winner of the National Book Award for Slaves in the Family and author of Life of a Klansman

“A gracefully written book about one church and the tragic death of nine martyrs, which also narrates a critical history of enslavement, the search for freedom, and the hatreds that are animated with each new generation. Few accounts of racism and violence in the United States provide such rich and sensitive narrative about how much we all suffer as a result of the nation’s original sins. Breathtaking and beautiful!” — Marcia Chatelain, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

“A sobering, expertly told history of the struggle for equality as waged from pulpit and pew.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)