Sign-In
Cart
We Just Be
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Apr 7 2026
Pages: 80
Weight: 0.26
Height: 0.17 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
We Just Be by Harold Smith is a powerful, deeply human novel that traces the lives of two friends, Mercer Jackson and Hayes Brown, across four decades in the heart of a Black working-class community in Kansas City.
Beginning in the 1980s on Quindaro Avenue-the Q-the story unfolds inside a barbershop, that sacred space where laughter, debate, culture, and truth collide. Mercer and Hayes are young, ambitious, and standing at the edge of possibility, opening a business that represents more than income-it represents legacy, independence, and belief in themselves.
As the years pass, We Just Be evolves into a sweeping portrait of Black life in America. Through the shifting decades-marked by Reaganomics, the crack era, rising violence, cultural transformation, political change, and eventual quiet decline-the novel captures both the resilience and vulnerability of a community and the men within it.
Mercer and Hayes walk very different paths. Mercer builds a life rooted in faith, family, and generational wealth. Hayes embraces freedom, experience, and self-determination. Their ongoing conversations-about music, race, religion, politics, love, and purpose-form the emotional backbone of the novel, offering readers an intimate look at two philosophies of life unfolding in real time.
At its core, We Just Be is about time-how it shapes us, tests us, and ultimately humbles us. It is about the choices we make, the roads we don't take, and the quiet realization that life is not just about becoming-but about simply being.
Told with authenticity, humor, and profound insight, this novel is a love letter to Black barbershop culture, to community, and to the beauty of ordinary lives lived with depth and meaning.
Also in
Plays
Four Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew, a Midsummer Night's Dream, the Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem
Miller, Arthur
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Sophocles
Euripides
Aeschylus
Paperback
The Laramie Project and the Laramie Project: Ten Years Later
Kaufman, Moises
Fondakowski, Leigh
Pierotti, Greg
Paperback
FRANKENSTEIN or The Modern Prometheus (The Revised 1831 Edition - Wisehouse Classics)
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paperback
Four Major Plays: A Doll's House/Ghosts/Hedda Gabler/The Master Builder
Ibsen, Henrik
McFarlane, James
Arup, Jens
Paperback
A Doll's House and Other Plays: With Pillars of the Community, Ghosts and an Enemy of the People
Ibsen, Henrik
Paperback
KJV, Pew Bible, Large Print, Hardcover, Burgundy, Red Letter Edition (Large Print Edition)
Thomas Nelson
Hardcover
Our Town and the Cosmic One-Acts: The Long Christmas Dinner, the Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, and Pullman Car Hiawatha
Wilder, Thornton
Paperback
Five Plays: Ivanov, the Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and the Cherry Orchard
Chekhov, Anton
Hingley, Ronald
Paperback