The Occidental Book of the Dead
On sale
29th September 2026
Price: £25
*** TIME, Most Anticipated Books of 2026 ***
THE WIRE MEETS COLSON WHITEHEAD IN THIS AUDACIOUS AND DARKLY FUNNY LITERARY CRIME MASTERPIECE
‘A wide-ranging juggernaut of a novel … immersive and thought-provoking’
Guardian
‘Compelling, funny and wise’
Daily Mail
‘Dazzling, dizzying … a stunning novel’
Irish Times
*******
George Washington Jonson has been in the Atlanta police force for a decade, patrolling the streets he grew up on and managing to build relationships within the force – especially with Tucker, the veteran police officer and self-described ‘redneck’ who taught Jonson the ropes.
Now it’s 2005 and Jonson himself is tasked with training hot-headed rookie recruits. One night out on patrol with his trainee, Utner, a split-second confrontation with a white teenager takes a violent turn and Utner shoots the teenager dead. As the resulting furor mounts to a fever pitch, it threatens to expose the complex nest of lies that seethes beneath the entire city, and order must be restored.
So far, so Hollywood.
But then a dizzying somersault in the novel’s structure upends the narrative and begins an even darker, more complicated and provocative story about racism, power and corruption – building to an unforgettable portrait of a nation divided.
*******
PRAISE FOR THE OCCIDENTAL BOOK OF THE DEAD . . .
‘Something the literary world needs to see more of: It’s ambitious, creative and, most important of all, unapologetic’ The New York Times
‘A wide-ranging juggernaut of a novel … internalised racism, overlapping identities, double standards and the sheer messiness of people’s lives are laid bare in an immersive and thought-provoking read’ Guardian
‘In T. Geronimo Johnson’s Atlanta, racial tensions percolate and the system rarely bends to demands for justice. The author explores the moral calculus of a Black cop who’s implicated in the killing of a white teenager. In a narrative that unfolds over two decades, Johnson asks big questions about identity, corruption, and American ideals’ TIME, Most Anticipated Books of 2026
‘Dazzling, dizzying … a furious, sly postmodern mystery about a deeply corrupt society … a stunning novel’ Irish Times
‘Johnson’s take on history, his political commentary, and humor read like jazz, as, with this book in particular, he plays with the novel as a form, bending notes, making new music’ Attica Locke, New York Times bestselling author of Bluebird, Bluebird
‘Wildly unpredictable … emotionally charged … often surprising’ Booklist
‘Johnson’s hefty, free-wheeling, sharp-witted, disquieting third novel has a complexity that belies its straightforward premise … a swing-for-the-fences novel, both a gripping procedural and high literary study of American bigotry’ Kirkus
‘Nothing is what it seems in this spellbinding and profanely funny novel about race, police violence, and distorted narratives … the author thrillingly plays on expectations of a sympathetic main character and a story of vindication by keeping the reader guessing at the truth and the nature of his protagonist’ Publishers Weekly
‘Compelling, funny and wise’ Daily Mail
‘Kaleidoscopic, jarring, voluble, coruscating, frenetic, dense, caustic, volatile, horny, irreverent, exhortative, bonkers, brilliant’ Garden & Gun
THE WIRE MEETS COLSON WHITEHEAD IN THIS AUDACIOUS AND DARKLY FUNNY LITERARY CRIME MASTERPIECE
‘A wide-ranging juggernaut of a novel … immersive and thought-provoking’
Guardian
‘Compelling, funny and wise’
Daily Mail
‘Dazzling, dizzying … a stunning novel’
Irish Times
*******
George Washington Jonson has been in the Atlanta police force for a decade, patrolling the streets he grew up on and managing to build relationships within the force – especially with Tucker, the veteran police officer and self-described ‘redneck’ who taught Jonson the ropes.
Now it’s 2005 and Jonson himself is tasked with training hot-headed rookie recruits. One night out on patrol with his trainee, Utner, a split-second confrontation with a white teenager takes a violent turn and Utner shoots the teenager dead. As the resulting furor mounts to a fever pitch, it threatens to expose the complex nest of lies that seethes beneath the entire city, and order must be restored.
So far, so Hollywood.
But then a dizzying somersault in the novel’s structure upends the narrative and begins an even darker, more complicated and provocative story about racism, power and corruption – building to an unforgettable portrait of a nation divided.
*******
PRAISE FOR THE OCCIDENTAL BOOK OF THE DEAD . . .
‘Something the literary world needs to see more of: It’s ambitious, creative and, most important of all, unapologetic’ The New York Times
‘A wide-ranging juggernaut of a novel … internalised racism, overlapping identities, double standards and the sheer messiness of people’s lives are laid bare in an immersive and thought-provoking read’ Guardian
‘In T. Geronimo Johnson’s Atlanta, racial tensions percolate and the system rarely bends to demands for justice. The author explores the moral calculus of a Black cop who’s implicated in the killing of a white teenager. In a narrative that unfolds over two decades, Johnson asks big questions about identity, corruption, and American ideals’ TIME, Most Anticipated Books of 2026
‘Dazzling, dizzying … a furious, sly postmodern mystery about a deeply corrupt society … a stunning novel’ Irish Times
‘Johnson’s take on history, his political commentary, and humor read like jazz, as, with this book in particular, he plays with the novel as a form, bending notes, making new music’ Attica Locke, New York Times bestselling author of Bluebird, Bluebird
‘Wildly unpredictable … emotionally charged … often surprising’ Booklist
‘Johnson’s hefty, free-wheeling, sharp-witted, disquieting third novel has a complexity that belies its straightforward premise … a swing-for-the-fences novel, both a gripping procedural and high literary study of American bigotry’ Kirkus
‘Nothing is what it seems in this spellbinding and profanely funny novel about race, police violence, and distorted narratives … the author thrillingly plays on expectations of a sympathetic main character and a story of vindication by keeping the reader guessing at the truth and the nature of his protagonist’ Publishers Weekly
‘Compelling, funny and wise’ Daily Mail
‘Kaleidoscopic, jarring, voluble, coruscating, frenetic, dense, caustic, volatile, horny, irreverent, exhortative, bonkers, brilliant’ Garden & Gun
Reviews
Kaleidoscopic, jarring, voluble, coruscating, frenetic, dense, caustic, volatile, horny, irreverent, exhortative, bonkers, brilliant: That's the arsenal of adjectives I mustered to describe T. Geronimo Johnson's The Occidental Book of the Dead. . . . [It's] a novel that demands patience, stamina, forbearance. It repeatedly pokes its finger in your chest and sometimes pokes a couple in your eyes, Three Stooges style. It's a murder mystery of sorts, but not a cozy one. Johnson's primary interest is in the conflicted, convoluted soul of America. . . . This is a chainsaw satire, a ripping send-up that takes down Black and white and liberal and conservative pieties alike, with the same spinning blade
Compelling, funny and wise
No one is having more fun with language than T. Geronimo Johnson. The way his mind works is endlessly entertaining, inviting us into a fantasia. Of men behaving badly in a world behaving worse. Of walking broken hearts with guns. Men, who are somehow, still, trying to bridge a cultural gap, to move toward some understanding, a shared humanity. Johnson's take on history, his political commentary, and humor read like jazz, as, with this book in particular, he plays with the novel as a form, bending notes, making new music
Nothing is what it seems in this spellbinding and profanely funny novel about race, police violence, and distorted narratives ... the author thrillingly plays on expectations of a sympathetic main character and a story of vindication by keeping the reader guessing at the truth and the nature of his protagonist. Fans of Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will devour this
Wildly unpredictable ... emotionally charged ... often surprising
Johnson's hefty, free-wheeling, sharp-witted, disquieting third novel has a complexity that belies its straightforward premise ... a swing-for-the-fences novel, both a gripping procedural and high literary study of American bigotry.
The Occidental Book of the Dead is a book for readers seeking wild, ambitious literature. It's an athletic book for nerds who pump out supersets with Infinite Jest and House of Leaves, then wind down with Percival Everett.... The Occidental Book of the Dead just might be something the literary world needs to see more of: It's ambitious, creative and, most important of all, unapologetic.... With significant flourish, the author has created a flawed, inescapably human hero you still root for.... The Occidental Book of the Dead is an adrenaline-filled high-wire act. It's funny when it needs to be, hard to track when it wants to be, and meticulously engineered at every moment. It is storytelling from a writer who knows the fundamentals of the craft well enough that he can break all the rules and still build a propulsive story. The end result is a sharp, unapologetic art-house novel full of gravitas, humor and heartbreaking revelations about the Black American experience and the thousand and one ways our nation can shatter Black souls. It will not be a novel for everyone. It doesn't want to be. And that's a large part of why it succeeds
Dazzling, dizzying ... a furious, sly postmodern mystery about a deeply corrupt society ... a stunning novel
The Occidental Book of the Dead asks a lot of the reader. The novel features a sprawling cast with connections to one another that don't become clear until later in the book, and Johnson takes frequent digressions into the history of the South, sociology, economics, and popular culture. It is all very much worth it ... Johnson's prose is nothing short of spectacular, with his protagonist's voice a mix of longing, anger, confusion, and desperation. Bitterly funny ... darkly humorous ... a stunning novel, one that asks us to consider who we really are as Americans, not who we tell ourselves we are. Johnson has proven that he is one of the country's finest writers of fiction, and this is his tour de force.
A wide-ranging juggernaut of a novel ... internalised racism, overlapping identities, double standards and the sheer messiness of people's lives are laid bare in an immersive and thought-provoking read
In T. Geronimo Johnson's Atlanta, racial tensions percolate and the system rarely bends to demands for justice. In his latest novel, the author of Welcome to Braggsville, a National Book Award finalist, explores the moral calculus of a Black cop who's implicated in the killing of a white teenager. In a narrative that unfolds over two decades, Johnson asks big questions about identity, corruption, and American ideals