LaToya Watkins’ writing has been published in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney’s, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere. In her debut Perish: A Novel (Tiny Reparations Books), a Black Texan family explores the effects of inherited trauma and intergenerational violence as it comes together to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed. “Bear it or perish yourself.” Those are the words Helen Jean – the matriarch of the Turner family – hears one night in her cousin’s outhouse that change the trajectory of her life. Perish follows four members of the Turner family: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth and the time spent under Helen Jean’s thumb; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark and twisted past; Jan, a mother of two who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem, Texas, for good; and Lydia, a woman whose marriage is falling apart because she can’t stay pregnant, as they go home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother. This family reunion unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask questions about who is deserving of forgiveness – and blame.
