Goliath

A young Black man feels called irresistibly to farmland he has never seen, where a fateful feud simmers between a pastor and his protégé. Goliath is a thunderous, instant classic that reimagines the biblical story of David and Goliath through the unforgettable saga of one family living during the Great Migration in the heart of the American South.

"PLEASE READ THIS MASTERPIECE." —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

In 1910, fourteen-year-old David Jeremiah Lightfoot inherits his father’s farm in Mississippi—a barren, cursed plot of land once known as Goliath. Having grown up in Chicago, David has never lived on a farm, but he is determined to cultivate the land more successfully than his father ever could. Upon arriving, he confronts both literal and figurative giants as the weight of his family’s legacy becomes inseparable from the fate of the land and the surrounding community.

Narrating this sweeping saga is David’s youngest son, Little Bit, a deeply sensitive storyteller whose love for his parents, grandfather Big Man, Uncle Jonathan, cousin, and siblings shapes every page. Through Little Bit’s eyes, readers witness David’s rise to a precarious position of wealth and influence, balanced by moments of tenderness, joy, and transcendent beauty.

At once an intimate family story and a powerful tragedy, Goliath explores themes of destiny, legacy, and redemption. It is a revelatory meditation on the enduring, complicated relationship between Black Americans and the land their ancestors worked, struggled upon, and called home.