Burn Down Master's House: A Conversation with Clay Cane and James Jones

Burn Down Master's House is a singular tour de force of a novel—breathtaking in scope, compassion, and timeliness that speaks powerfully to our present era. Inspired by long-buried true stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, this powerful novel offers a searing portrayal of resistance. From Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift, it's a must-read for fans of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett.

Clay Cane is an award-winning journalist, radio host, political analyst, and New York Times bestselling author. "The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump," an instant New York Times bestseller, was released in January 2024. Clay is also the author of Live Through This: Surviving the Intersections of Sexuality, God, and Race (2017). His third book, "Burn Down Master's House: A Novel," will be released in February 2026.

In 2017, "The Clay Cane Show," a political talk radio show, launched on SiriusXM Urban View channel 126. Clay is the co-editor and contributing writer of the 2012 anthology "For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough: Coming of Age, Coming Out, and Coming Home." Additionally, he contributed to 2013’s "Where Did Our Love Go: Love and Relationships in the African-American Community."

He is a graduate of Rutgers University-Newark, Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. in English and African American Studies.

James R. Jones is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Sociology at Rutgers University-Newark. He is also the director of the Sheila Y. Oliver Center for Politics and Race in America. His research focuses on racial representation and inequality within American political workplaces. Dr. Jones examines the career experiences of Black workers to examine the interplay of race, power, and inequality within our nation’s most prominent political institutions.

Dr. Jones is the author of The Last Plantation: Racism and resistance in the halls of Congress from Princeton University Press. The title draws on the fact that members of Congress and their staff have applied this telling nickname to the legislature in order to highlight how the institution is exempt from the very policies and principles it is tasked to create and implement (including federal workplace laws). In The Last Plantation, Jones draws upon the plantation metaphor to analyze how race and racism are produced and maintained within the congressional workplace and the Capitol at large. Centering the experiences of Black workers within this complex landscape, his book provides valuable insights to demonstrate the problems they face, the barriers that hinder their progress, and the ways they contest entrenched inequality.