People Like Us ★★★★★

Jason Mott can write. Reading this book is an experience.

People Like Us is set between a Minnesota college campus in winter and a billionaire's estate in Paris, and the contrast does a lot of work. The cold, institutional weight of America on one side; the remove and clarity of distance on the other. One of the book's sharpest observations comes from a character who says she is less angry in Paris, that the further she gets from the source, the more clearly she can think about it: "It's harder to think about how to put out a house fire if you're still inside the house." That's the book's thesis in one line.

The book is direct but layered. The characters carry the weight of the argument without becoming mouthpieces for it. There's a line about assimilation that sticks: "We've been assimilated, but they won't let us be assimilated. And you can't pull the eggs out of a cake that's already been baked." It's the kind of image that lands because it's precise rather than poetic.

Mott also has a gift for humor that keeps the book from caving in on itself. A throwaway gag about a billionaire family so old their name became a household vegetable (can you guess it? I could in one try. A clue - it's an Italian family). A doctor described as "digging for cancer like it's the last corner of peanut butter in the jar." These moments don't undercut the seriousness; they make the seriousness bearable.

By the end, leaving America starts to look less like giving up and more like a rational calculation. Mott earns that conclusion.

Edition Read

• Edition Type: Hardcover
• Number of Pages: 288 pages
• Date First Published: August 5, 2025
• Publisher: Dutton
• ISBN13: 9798217047116
• ASIN: B0DM4WM82J
• Language: English

Description

People Like Us is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.

In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.

Source: GoodReads

Notable Highlights

Every year on his birthday his doctor sticks her finger up his ass, digging for cancer like it’s the last corner of peanut butter in the jar, without so much as a kiss on the cheek or a high five when she’s done. [loc. 100]

Yeah, sister, in spite of everything that’s happened, the smell of good food and the lights of the right skyline can bring a body out of almost any darkness. [loc. 262]

one thing I’ve learned in life is that you should always respect someone who knows what they’re doing, no matter what the thing is that they’re actually doing. [loc. 270]

The backstory I get from Frenchie about the place is that it used to belong to some old-money Italian family so big their name is now a household vegetable, not the other way around. That’s how big the family he bought out is. They’re a household name that built a household vegetable. [loc. 1040]

I think Frenchie might have just helped me understand that, hell, for the right price, leaving America just might be the new American Dream. [loc. 1284]

sometimes when someone says ‘I love you’ what they’re really doing is asking ‘Do you love me?’ Now I probably say ‘I love you’ to America thirty times a day.” [loc. 1532]

He thinks for a moment, then mumbles a whole different kind of Foreign than he did a moment ago. It’s like rolling hills on the ears. It’s fresh water in syllable form. Like I’m standing somewhere safe and beautiful and nobody knows I’m there. All of that from a few words in a language I can’t even identify. [loc. 1700]

A wise ol’ gal once told me: “If it lasts, it’s love. If it doesn’t, it’s just a love story.” But the thing is: everyone loves a love story. [loc. 2122]

“I’m also not as angry here,” Not Toni Morrison says. “The longer I’m here, the farther away the anger gets. The harder it gets to access it directly, and I think that helps me think about it more clearly. It’s harder to think about how to put out a house fire if you’re still inside the house.” [loc. 2715]

“We’ve been assimilated, but they won’t let us be assimilated. And you can’t pull the eggs out of a cake that’s already been baked.” The sob that comes almost chokes him. [loc. 2865]

When folks come around with that old sales pitch about how things always gotta come up snake eyes in the end, well, I just let it pass me by. Nothing in this life is duty-bound to fall apart. Nothing. Not even you, [loc. 2913]

There should be a word for the ability to stop crying about a past pain even though it’s still in you. There should be a word for living. [loc. 3469]