Dominion: A Novel [9780374609337]

Overview

Short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A Best Book of the Year: Elle, Garden & Gun, Electric Literature, Debutiful
A Must-Read: New York, People, NPR, Literary Hub, Jezebel, The Millions, Southern Living, Clarion Ledger, Southern Review of Books, BookBrowse
An Indies Introduce and Indie Next Pick
A Publishers Weekly Writer to Watch
A finalist for the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prize’s Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

“A razor-sharp Southern family drama.” —People

Reverend Sabre Winfrey, Jr., shepherd of the Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church, believes in God, his own privilege, and enterprise. He owns the barbershop and the radio station, and generally keeps an iron hand on every aspect of society in Dominion, Mississippi. He and his wife, Priscilla, have five boys; the youngest, Emanuel, is called Wonderboy—no one sings prettier, runs as fast, or turns as many heads. But Wonderboy, his father, and all the structures in place that keep them on top are not as righteous as they seem to be. And when Wonderboy is caught off guard by an encounter with a stranger, he finds himself confronted by questions he’d never imagined. His response sends shock waves through the entire community.

Priscilla and Diamond, two women who love these men, bear witness to their charms and bear the brunt of their choices. Through their eyes and their stories, Dominion offers an intricate, intimate view of how secrets control us, how shame stifles us, how silence implicates us, and how even love plays a role in the everyday violence and casual sins of the powerful.

A brilliantly crafted Black Southern family drama told with the captivating force, humor, and tenderness carried in the hearts of these women, Addie E. Citchens’s Dominion wrestles with the many brutal, sinister ways in which we are shaped by fear and patriarchy, and studies how we might yet choose to break free.