Story: ‘Under the Ackee Tree,’ by Jonathan Escoffery

Ursa Short Fiction

Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton introduce “Under the Ackee Tree,” a story by Jonathan Escoffery from his acclaimed 2022 collection, If I Survive You.

The story is performed by Torian Brackett, and it comes from the collection's audiobook, produced by Macmillan Audio. Our thanks to Macmillan for sharing the story with Ursa's listeners.

This story follows Topper, a Jamaican immigrant who has fled the political violence in Kingston and moved his family to Miami to raise his two sons. “Under the Ackee Tree” is a narrative of leaving and of loss, of destruction and rebuilding, and of the ways we disappoint as partners, as parents, and as children.

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Reading List

• If I Survive You, by Jonathan Escoffery (MCD)
• If I Survive You audiobook (Audible)
• Jonathan Escoffery Publications
• Jonathan Escoffery Interviews

About the Author

Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the linked story collection, If I Survive You, a New York Times and Booklist Editor’s Choice, an IndieNext Pick, and a National Bestseller. If I Survive You was longlisted for the National Book Award, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize For Debut Short Story Collection, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the Story Prize, and was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. It was named a ‘best’ book by The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, People, TIME, Oprah Daily, GQ, and elsewhere. In 2020, Jonathan received the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He was a 2021-2023 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

More from Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton:

• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (Dawnie Walton)

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Performed by Torian Brackett

Episode editor: Kelly Araja

Associate producer: Marina Leigh

Music: “Biosphere” by Yotam Agam

Audio excerpt courtesy Macmillan Audio, from IF I SURVIVE YOU by Jonathan Escoffery, read by Torian Brackett.

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