Nightcrawling

A dazzling; unforgettable novel about a young black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system—a debut that announces a blazingly original voice. A dazzling novel about a young black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system—the debut of a blazingly original voice that “bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole” (Tommy Orange; best-selling author of There There) Kiara and her brother; Marcus; are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school; their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom; Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door; abandoned by his mother; safe and fed. One night; what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. And her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department. Full of edge; raw beauty; electrifying intensity; and piercing vulnerability; Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before.