PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThere’s a lovely clarity to Morgan Talty’s debut novel, Fire Exit ... This novel does not shy away from blistering questions of belonging and identity, but rather leans into them, in taut, often precise prose ... Though Talty’s subject matter is often dark — exploring alcoholism, abandonment, physical violence, emotional abuse — he has a light touch, and draws us in with a calm intimacy ... As with any first novel, there are occasional overreaches. Sometimes the language is stretched beyond clarity ... For all its grandness, Fire Exit sometimes feels more like a collection of linked stories than a self-contained novel. Occasionally, the connective tissue is missing, and the chapters feel discrete ... But this does nothing to dim the novel’s innate strengths.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewCoates balances the horrors of slavery against the fantastical. He extends the idea of the gifts of the disenfranchised to include a kind of superpower. But The Water Dancer is very much its own book, and its gestures toward otherworldliness remain grounded. In the end, it is a novel interested in the psychological effects of slavery, a grief that Coates is especially adept at parsing ... The paradoxes that existed for both the slavers and the enslaved are skillfully examined ... It is also true, however, that this is a first novel, and reflects some of the inconsistencies of first novels. The writing occasionally lacks vibrancy, despite its great excitements; the dialogue is heavily expository. Almost without exception, when Hi meets a new character, that person recounts his or her own personal history at length. While we’re told early on that people mark Hi as a listener and are compelled to tell him things, these disclosures still feel strained and unnatural ... But the novel’s few weaknesses are offset by its enormous strengths.
Chigozie Obioma
PositiveThe New York Times Book Review\"An Orchestra of Minorities is more expansive in form, broader in reach [than Obioma\'s previous novel] ... [As a result of the narrative strategy, Chinonso’s] emotions can sometimes be hard to connect with when filtered through the distant lens of the chi. This is a story, then, in which the events take place behind a veil, and the intensity of passion is dimmed ... The novel comes alive in those moments when it captures the alienation of foreigners in strange lands ... Obioma is especially good at exposing such instances of casual racism ... It’s a story as old as the epic, but, sadly, an all too modern one.\
Attica Locke
PositiveThe GuardianThe novel is as much murder mystery as it is a meditation on race and on being loyal to one’s roots. It takes its title from a John Lee Hooker song and reflects the bluesman’s griefs. At the heart of the plot are family entanglements, both illicit and openly exposed like wounds. The pacing is expertly measured — though there are great surprises, they feel warranted and true … Locke presents a world in which the divide between black law enforcers and white officials is wide. Here, differing notions of justice — who is deserving of protection, what constitutes fairness in law and who is entitled to have those laws bent on their behalf — can mean the difference between life and death. It is an anatomy of the thin blue line, and its truths are bracing.
