This multifaceted portrait of an American family is a brilliant blending of form, dazzling readers with both psychological depth and historical scope, and shows an author at the height of her powers.

-- "The Rumpus"

But Where's Home? is literary art that does what the best fiction does. It entertains with equal parts depth and levity, educates, fosters understanding about its characters and setting, and illustrates the beauty, possibility, and power in the written word.

--Kristen Gentry, author of Mama Said

But Where's Home is an essential addition to African American literature in the new millennium, and Johnson's voice is a breath of fresh air. Readers will be dazzled by both the psychological and the historical scope of this collection.

--Jacinda Townsend, author of Mother Country and Trigger Warning

This captivating collection features an engaging narrative voice, well-developed characters, and satisfying storylines. Johnson's work is outstanding, and this is her best book to date. This impressive effort deserves wide attention.

--Crystal Wilkinson, author of Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts and editor of the Screen Door Press imprint

In But Where's Home?, Toni Ann Johnson brilliantly utilizes the short story form to create a multifaceted portrait of an American family. It's insightful, it's gripping, it's funny, it's unflinching--it's the real deal. Not since J. D. Salinger's Glass stories have I encountered a kindred so alive on the page.

--Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day

The triumphs and traumas of a multigenerational American family will steal your heart in Toni Ann Johnson's brilliant epic But Where's Home? This book is gorgeous, insightful, empathetic, relatable, exquisitely detailed--and my favorite story collection of the year, hands down.

--J. Ryan Stradal, national bestselling author of Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club

Each heart-rending story in But Where's Home? is rife with emotional depth and psychological insight. You'll root for Livia, wince at Velma, shake your head at Phil, and feel--deeply--for Maddie. Not since John Williams' Stoner has the inner life of a character been so sumptuously imagined and delicately rendered. With these stories, with this family, Toni Ann Johnson has tapped into something primal.

--Rickey Fayne, author of The Devil Three Times

But Where's Home? is a striking portrayal of the domestic: the social facades, the lies, the betrayal, the violence, the comedy, the endless longing. With this epic family saga spanning the 1960s to the 1990s and beyond, Toni Ann Johnson mines those eras for all their racial and sexual turbulence and juiciness. The result is a wry, honest look at what a mess our parents can make--of themselves, us, and each other--and how some of us survive, in spite of them. Clever, imaginative, and flawlessly written, But Where's Home? has a home on my bookshelf as a new classic.

--Deesha Philyaw, author of National Book Award finalist The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Toni Ann Johnson has built a career turning difficult truths into unflinching fiction. . . . Her latest book, But Where's Home?, follows the Arringtons, an upper-middle-class Black family navigating life in a predominantly white New York suburb from the 1960s through 2022. Through linked stories and a novella, Johnson captures their humor and heartbreak as they grapple with racism, identity and the eternal question of where they truly belong.

-- "Rolling Out"

Publisher: Screen Door Press

Pub date: 2026-02-10

Length: 232 pages