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.
