PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewLazar’s narrator is a complex creation, and his occasionally clueless privilege — an important part of the story of race in America — is balanced by painful awareness ... What too much autofiction has in common is a weakness for the self-indulgent, for spelling things out and for elevating the quotidian, the banal into thin profundities. In Vengeance, the frame may be wide (prison, racial injustice) but the range of motion can be narrow and Lazar, on occasion, falls into this trap ... But the lapses are few, and Lazar can be deeply moving as he captures the hopelessness that surrounds him ... The families of Vengeance are torn apart by injustice, and Kendrick’s incarceration leaves a half-dozen ruined lives in its wake. Throughout the novel, we feel heartbreaking possibility, the near miss of lives that might have been.
