# How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family's Story of Hope and Survival in the American South - Hardcover

by **Esau McCaulley** (Author)

**From the _New York Times_ contributing opinion writer and award-winning author of _Reading While Black,_ a riveting intergenerational account of his family's search for home and hope**

"A riveting book that invites you into the personal journey of one of the finest writers alive today."--Beth Moore, _New York Times_ bestselling author of _All My Knotted-Up Life_  
**  
A _PUBLISHERS WEEKLY_ BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR**

For much of his life, Esau McCaulley was taught to see himself as an exception: someone who, through hard work, faith, and determination, overcame childhood poverty, anti-Black racism, and an absent father to earn a job as a university professor and a life in the middle class.

But that narrative was called into question one night, when McCaulley answered the phone and learned that his father--whose absence defined his upbringing--died in a car crash. McCaulley was being asked to deliver his father's eulogy, to make sense of his complicated legacy in a country that only accepts Black men on the condition that they are exceptional, hardworking, perfect.

The resulting effort sent McCaulley back through his family history, seeking to understand the community that shaped him. In these pages, we meet his great-grandmother Sophia, a tenant farmer born with the gift of prophecy who scraped together a life in Jim Crow Alabama; his mother, Laurie, who raised four kids alone in an era when single Black mothers were demonized as "welfare queens"; and a cast of family, friends, and neighbors who won small victories in a world built to swallow Black lives. With profound honesty and compassion, he raises questions that implicate us all: What does each person's struggle to build a life teach us about what we owe each other? About what it means to be human?

_How Far to the Promised Land_ is a thrilling and tender epic about being Black in America. It's a book that questions our too-simple narratives about poverty and upward mobility; a book in which the people normally written out of the American Dream are given voice.

### Author Biography

**Esau McCaulley** is associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and theologian in residence at Progressive Baptist Church, a historically Black congregation in Chicago. He is the author of the award-winning book _Reading While Black_ and the children's book _Josey Johnson's Hair and the Holy Spirit._ He is a contributing opinion writer for _The New York Times_. His writings have also appeared in _The Atlantic,_ _The Washington Post,_ and _Christianity Today_.

**Number of Pages:** 240

**Dimensions:** 0.94 x 8.35 x 5.2 IN

**Publication Date:** September 12, 2023

## Details

- **Price:** 27.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 27.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family's Story of Hope and Survival in the American South - Hardcover

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