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About
When Achilles Conroy and his brother Troy return from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, their white mother presents them with the key to their past: envelopes containing details about their respective birth parents. After Troy disappears, Achilles--always his brother's keeper--embarks on a harrowing journey in search of Troy, an experience that will change him forever. Heartbreaking, intimate, and at times disturbing, Hold It 'Til It Hurts is a modern-day odyssey through war, adventure, disaster, and love, and explores how people who do not define themselves by race make sense of a world that does.
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Reviews
"[A] powerful, stylish debut novel . . . The stark backstory fleshing out Achilles and Troy's arduous combat duty over in 'Goddamnistan' smartly plays off the thorough exploration of modern American attitudes on race, war, and family."
Publishers Weekly
"[A] powerful literary debut . . . The depth, complexity and empathy within Johnson's narrative explores issues great and small--race, color and class, the wounds of war suffered by individuals and by nations, the complications and obligations of brotherhood and familial love. Transcendent contemporary American literary fiction, a rich and passionate story rewarding enough to be read again."
Kirkus, starred review
"The magnificence of Hold it 'Til it Hurts is not only in the prose and the story but also in the book's great big beating heart. These complex and compelling characters and the wizardry of Johnson's storytelling will dazzle and move you from first page to last. Novels don't teach us how to live but Hold it 'Til It Hurts will make you hush and wonder."
Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead