The Gesture That Fit Paperback

Thirteen-year-old Jacob Hayles has spent his life performing-the smiles, the mannerisms, the violence – anything to endure the gritty streets of Philadelphia. To those around him, he’s confident, he’s cool, he’s normal; but more than anything, he’s a man. Yet beneath this carefully crafted persona, there’s a truth he doesn’t dare to acknowledge, even as he fights to keep it buried.

When his friends challenge him to lose his virginity, Jacob must prove his manhood or have his reality unravel. As the pressure mounts, he finds refuge in Xavier, the class “weirdo,” and although their fateful relationship inspires hope, it threatens to upend the life he has built-to unearth the Dead. With his world teetering on the verge of collapse, Jacob will have to answer the question: is happiness possible without truth or does burying the Dead mean burying himself too?

A heartrending coming-of-age novel, The Gesture That Fit portrays identity, community, and the disturbing concessions we make to belong. Devastating, yet longingly tender, Linton Taylor’s literary debut shines a light on the shadowed intimacy between Black boys and their denied boyhood.