LISTEN: When Jews and Blacks lived together

Black Jewish writer JAMES MCBRIDE has written a whodunit-cum-heist-cum-love story set in a mixed 1930s neighbourhood.

James McBride is best known for his memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, which told the story of his mother, who grew up in an abusive, ultra-Orthodox Jewish family.

Now the writer, whose father was African American, has written a novel set among both the communities of his heritage in Pottsdown, Pennsylvania.

“Chicken Hill was the part of town where Blacks lived, Jews lived, white people like - I don't know - Italians and Greeks and Irish who couldn't afford any better lived. And they all pretty much got along,” he said.

NPR's Scott Detrow spoke with McBride about his new book The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

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James McBride's new novel explores Black and Jewish affection, tensions in the 1930s (NPR)