Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, Steven A. Holmes, Brings His Novel Black Messiahs "Home" to Mount Vernon

Steven A. Holmes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with an extensive background at iconic news organizations including Time Magazine, The New York Times, and CNN, has added storytelling to his reporting and editing skills with his recently released novel Black Messiahs, published by Koehler Books. It has received enthusiastic reviews from Air Mail and Kirkus Reviews. Holmes, a native of Mount Vernon, will appear at the Mount Vernon Public Library on Thursday, October 15 at 6:30pm, as part of a multi-city book tour. Appearing with Holmes will be Dr. Larry Spruill, distinguished professor, educator, and the first African American to hold the position of Mount Vernon City Historian, and a former classmate of Holmes.

The event is free and open to the public with registration. The book is available at most Barnes & Noble Bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million (BAM!) and Walmart. Books will also be available for sale at the event. Steve will sign copies of the book for those who carry it with them or purchase that evening.

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A work of historical fiction, Holmes takes his readers on an interconnected journey of three individuals; brothers, Amos and Sammie living in Chicago and David, a Jewish boy, growing up in Poland. Together and separately, they navigate the profound adversities of war, and the Holocaust, ultimately finding a path toward one another.

Black Messiahs explores a wealth of other compelling themes and minor characters including family dynamics, sibling rivalry and reconciliation, romance, Jewish resistance, and homophobia among fictional and historical personalities with several real historical events. Brothers Amos and Sammie, join the 761st Tank Battalion and the 333rd Artillery Battalion respectively and we follow David, whose family lived in the ghetto in Bialystock, as he is marched from Majdanek to Auschwitz-Birkenau to Gross-Rosen to Mauthausen.

Through the book, Holmes found his cause which is to honor the valor shown by and contributions of African Americans in military service, and their families, across generations and the importance of amplifying that given current attempts to erase that history. A secondary yet equally urgent cause is to highlight the shared struggles of Black and Jewish communities, an often overlooked connection in discussions about race and anti-Semitism.

Visit the Mount Vernon Public Library website to register www.mountvernonpubliclibrary.org. To learn more about Black Messiahs visit www.stevenaholmes.com