I sat staring forlornly at a blank document titled ‘The Prophets Review’ and letting out a series of indeterminable noises when, with a laugh, I realised that a myriad of different vocalisations really summarised my experience of reading this startling debut.

The sharp intake of breath at certain turns of phrase, gasps of wonder and horror, an irritated huff when the TV blaring from the other room interrupted my concentration, the sigh of disappointment when I realised that the pull of sleep had Robert Jones Jr’s finely spun prose slipping through my fingers like sand, a sudden, completely ill-placed laugh that made even me jump when I stumbled across a ‘let out a breath they hadn’t known they’d been holding’, growls, groans, the sounds you make when you feel the need to watch something from between your fingers but you realise that you need them to turn the pages and your eyes to absorb them. I won’t mention the choked sobs, lest it deter you from a book that demands reading.

Robert Jones Jr has excavated the spaces that history has left obscured and filled them, not just with the queerness he is certain existed there, but with this incredibly powerful force of queer love and it is as utterly beautiful as the setting is harrowing and painful. I can’t think of another character pairing (a term that feels reductive because they are truly the beating, glowing heart of this book) that have transfixed me so deeply. We aren’t simply told of the profound rightness of the connection between Isaiah and Samuel, you feel the light of their love in every word, every chapter and from every character perspective. Even the characters that believe it to be something twisted and sinful find themselves almost cowering in the face of its perfection.

This book was a decade in the making and you can really feel that in its characters; they are so perfectly crafted and fully realised, regardless of the page-time afforded to them. The prose is demanding but utterly beautiful, this is a book that rewards a slower pace and rapt attention and, if you can give it that, I’m almost willing to guarantee that you’ll find yourself in awe of the way Robert Jones Jr shapes words.

I really don’t want to give the impression that this is just a beautiful, uplifting love story. It isn’t. There is such a weight and depth to the trauma within these pages. It is devastating and uplighting, hopeless and hopeful, horrifying and beautiful, brutal and tender.

This might be the longest I’ve ever spent on a review and I still don’t feel as though I've begun to do this book justice so please… just read it.