The wannabe jihadi is not always a religious desperado drawn from the dregs of society. He is often (like Osama bin Laden) a child of privilege. And his motivation may be more worldly than not. Laleh Khadivi’s fascinating novel A Good Country features one such unholy roller.

The good country is the United States. Reza is an American of Kurdish-Iranian descent and an ordinary teenager. He’s bright enough to attend Berkeley, but his interests tend toward surfing and getting high. When a friend and then a lover, Fatima, shows signs of radicalization, Reza—motivated by hedonism and the wish to keep Fatima, with whom he has an intense sexual relationship—goes along for the ride.

But other factors are afoot. The Boston marathon bombings occur. So does a massacre resembling the one in San Bernardino. These events lead to an increase in hate crimes toward Muslims, including Reza and his father. Also to blame are radical imams, agitating about American atrocities towards Muslims abroad. Their goal, to erase the “gray zone” where Muslims and infidels live in peace, finds traction.

Khadivi doesn’t justify the path toward radicalism so much as show how effortless, even banal, it is. In this respect, A Good Country resembles Michel Houellebecq’s Submission, as it’s about an a-religious libertine fleeing vacuity and ending in conversion. Alternately, the first half of the novel echoes Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero, when we see the more nightmarish and anomic aspects of California dreamin’. Meanwhile, Khadivi’s freewheeling writing style seems inspired by Beats like Jack Kerouac, which is all the more disconcerting when Reza and Fatima come to admire the stern prose of the Koran.

As accomplished in art as in storytelling, A Good Country addresses a central problem of our time. Is the American melting pot a reality, or is it a mirage?

Who has more lives than a cat and the bullet scars to prove it? That would be Samuel Hawley, the fascinatingly complicated and morally dubious titular character of Hannah Tinti’s gorgeous and gut-wrenching new novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley.

Having escaped more than his fair share of criminal capers by little more than the skin of his teeth, Hawley has spent most of his life on the lam, pulling up stakes and starting over with his daughter, Loo, whenever a job goes poorly. But when Loo turns 12, Hawley decides a little stability might serve her well and moves them to Olympus, Massachusetts, the small coastal village where Loo’s dead mother spent her girlhood. As the two perennial outsiders cautiously become part of a community, the past that Hawley has spent so long running from begins to close in on them. Loo’s adolescent misadventures are interspersed with histories of the dozen bullet wounds that decorate Hawley’s body, the narrative nimbly flitting between past and present day until the two timelines merge in a deadly and devastating climax.

Cinematic in its scope, this expansive novel confidently dwells in the murky liminal spaces of human morality while exploring enduring topics of time, death, love and grief. Tinti has created a darkly daring (yet oddly uplifting) book that serves as a beguiling study in contrasts and contradictions, one that will leave readers pondering the conundrum of whether her protagonist is a good man who has done bad things or a bad man who has done good things. Expertly infusing old-fashioned storytelling with a modern sensibility, Tinti blends spaghetti Western, literary suspense and mythology to great success.

This article was originally published in the April 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The title of Jacqueline Woodson’s brief, powerful first novel for adults, Another Brooklyn, could mean many things. Is it an acknowledgment of the difference between the Brooklyn of the 1970s and today’s hipster kingdom? Is it meant to distinguish her gritty book from Colm Tóibín’s bestseller, Brooklyn, which became an Academy Award-winning film? Or is Woodson referring to the ways in which memory can change a place in our minds as the years go on?

Woodson—a National Book Award winner for Brown Girl Dreaming—introduces her narrator, August, as she looks back on her arrival as a young girl to 1970s Brooklyn, in the midst of upheaval that includes white flight and poverty. August’s parents left behind a farm in Tennessee, and Woodson’s descriptions of both rural and urban settings are vivid and poetic. As she approaches her teens, August befriends three tough but vulnerable girls. The four friends pursue divergent dreams, which are meant to transport them from Brooklyn, but are also fueled by their experiences there. Powerful subplots explore the fates of August’s uncle, drafted to Vietnam, and August’s mother, drifting off into madness.

Another Brooklyn is so slim as to almost be a novella, and the scenes are brief and impressionistic, sometimes just a few sentences long. This, however, does not detract from the vibrancy of this coming-of-age story. Though August—and most of the characters in the book—are at times overwhelmed or enraged, they persevere. A question posed by August late in the book resonates with nearly all of the characters in this tender yet searing novel: “How do you begin to tell your own story?”

This article was originally published in the August 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

If The Exorcist had been authored by Tina Fey instead of William Peter Blatty, it might have borne an uncanny resemblance to what Grady Hendrix has accomplished with My Best Friend’s Exorcism. 

Readers may know Hendrix from his previous gem, Horrorstör, which was styled like a certain Swedish furniture store’s catalog. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is just as visually appealing, including elements that recall a high school yearbook—student photos capturing 1980s style, cheesy quotes and a color scheme that would make any Trapper Keeper-toting, slap-bracelet-wearing high school student feel fresh. 

We meet lead characters Abby and Gretchen during fifth grade. It is 1982, and Abby is an E.T. aficionado determined to win the admiration of her classmates via her mad roller-skating skills. Gretchen is the quiet new girl—and the only attendee of Abby’s disastrous 11th birthday party. This awkward encounter forges a friendship that deepens until high school, but then . . . possession strikes! After a mysterious summer night filled with illicit teenage fun, Gretchen suddenly turns on her friends, including Abby. But is she possessed, or is she just being a teenager? Abby thinks she knows the answer, but either way, the fates of Abby and Gretchen depend upon the strength of their bond. 

With scenes gruesome enough to satisfy any horror fan (you won’t look at milkshakes the same way after finishing this one), Hendrix has created a genre-ambiguous story that demonstrates a real understanding of teenage friendships. Using his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, as a backdrop allows Hendrix to give the neighborhoods, families and attitudes of the era an authentic feel. Fans of satire, nostalgia, dark comedy and, well, demons should read this book.

This article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Mary Frances Lombard—known as Frankie—has found her paradise. The 400 acres of the Lombard apple orchard are where she plans to be for the rest of her life. Like her father, she will quiet the wind and “outwit a storm”; she will make hay; she will grow apples; she will marry her brother William and together “carry on the business” forever.

In this way, Jane Hamilton (The Book of Ruth) introduces us to the fierce child narrator of her latest work, The Excellent Lombards. Frankie’s fantasy is silly, we know that. Nevertheless, Hamilton uses exaggerated, territorial and overly emotional kid-logic to great effect to make sure the reader is on Frankie’s side, and feeling her pain, even if it is with a chuckle. We follow her over the years, as reality slowly creeps into the black-and-white world inside the boundaries of the orchard. We see various grown-up experiences and tragedies—running a business, keeping peace in the family, even the 9/11 terrorist attacks—all through the self-centeredness of a child’s perspective, making them tender and often funny.

If, like me, you occasionally suffer from the affliction of wanting to live on a farm, then The Excellent Lombards is for you. But even if you don’t share that fantasy, this coming-of-age story is captivating and passionate, taking us back to being a child and believing in one thing wholeheartedly. Simply put, this is a book you won’t be able to put down.

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s sometimes amazing to realize how an obsession for sports can take over a life. In John L. Parker Jr.’s amiable new work, a prequel to his 1978 bestseller Once a Runner, Quenton Cassidy, teenage native of Citrus City, Florida, is so wrapped up in his athletic pursuits that the great upheavals of his era—the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, civil rights and the arrival of the Beatles for goodness’ sake!—stick in his mind the way anything sticks to Teflon. 

Torn between track and basketball, for which he’s just a bit shorter than he should be, Cassidy (as he’s called) frets over his running time, his technique, rankings, 220s, 440s and 880s. He does so even as his classmates brace themselves for the end of the world as delivered by a barrage of Russian nukes. When one of his friends is implicated in a murder, Cassidy does think of skipping a meet for a hot minute—but only for a hot minute. 

Still, for all his tunnel vision, Cassidy is a lovely young man. He is popular even among his athletic rivals. He is a good and dutiful son, and would be a sweet boyfriend if he were interested in dating. He attempts to be thorough even in his non-sporting activities and calls everyone “sir.” The only reason his “ma’ams” are few and far between is because there are about four women in the book who have brief speaking roles. This is a man’s man’s man’s world.

To his credit, Parker surrounds his hero with some mighty interesting men, some of whom are not what they ought to be (see above). The most interesting of these is the gigantic Trapper Nelson, animal lover and sometime poacher who lives rough in the swamp; he’s south Florida’s answer to Hagrid. The boys Cassidy plays with and against are also stout fellows. The one sour note is a coach so convinced of his own rightness that he’s willing to cut the athletically brilliant Cassidy from his team for even respectfully disagreeing with him.

Racing the Rain is a cornucopia for folks who are as track-and-field crazy as Cassidy. It’s also a good-hearted, good-natured book for the rest of us.

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.