Yes, Out of Darkness Is Banned!

Out of Darkness is set in the segregated oil-boom town of New London, Texas in 1937, where Naomi, a Mexican-American teenager, and Wash, a Black teenager, form a forbidden connection across the rigid racial boundaries of the Jim Crow South. Pérez interweaves their love story with the true history of the New London school explosion, one of the deadliest disasters in American history, creating a novel that examines how systemic racism shapes every aspect of life, from who gets to love whom to who gets to survive. The book also unflinchingly depicts the sexual abuse Naomi endures at the hands of her white stepfather.

Out of Darkness became a central target of the Texas book-banning movement in 2021 when State Representative Matt Krause included it on a list of 850 books he wanted investigated in school libraries. It has since been removed from shelves across the country, with over 140 total challenges. Critics object to its depictions of sexual abuse, interracial relationships, and racial violence, though Pérez has noted that the people trying to ban a book about racism in 1930s Texas are demonstrating exactly the kind of willful ignorance her novel confronts. It has been pulled from libraries in Texas, Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.