New People Book

An Amazon Best Book of August 2017: Maria and Khalil are two biracial twenty-seven-year-olds living together in late 90s Brooklyn. Maria is doing graduate work on the Jonestown cult, and she’s planning their Martha’s Vineyard wedding. Khalil is trying to get his startup off the ground. At Stanford, Maria considered Khalil to be the “miscellaneous” black kid surrounded by white kids. But they wound up a couple, brought together in part by their similarly beige skin color. Now in Brooklyn, they are striking out toward a comfortable existence that would see them married, successful, living in a brownstone, with a kid or two bearing cool urban names. They are even being featured in a documentary called “New People,” about the sons and daughters of interracial unions. But when Maria begins to obsess about a quiet, talented black man, whom she refers to only as “the Poet,” the story really begins to open up. Acute observations on race, status, and the choices we make—as well as some clever set pieces—make this an entertaining, thought-provoking read. While the story follows a relatively simple line, there is a lot going on thematically, and that causes the narrative to judder a time or two; but this is a novel you’ll find yourself pondering the day after you’ve finished, and probably the day after that. --Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.