Steph ChaRecensioni

20 stories, almost 23 hrs of suspense and mystery. Good narrations. My favorite is “God Bless America” starts slow but is most charming. Some have profanity others not. All are interesting, some more n others. Worthwhile reading.

Phenomenal ending--satisfying though ambiguous, true and beautiful.

An enjoyable journey through mystery and suspense.
Again a great collection has been assembled. Perhaps the annual appearance of this volume and the Mysterious Nookshops’ volume is a tribute to the creativity of the writers in our world - something I really appreciate.

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023, edited by Lisa Unger and series editor Steph Cha, is an excellent collection of the past year's short stories.

Every story is strong, though like any anthology some will appeal to you more than others. Some readers who think of more involved or complex stories as simply being a particularly difficult crime to solve may be less engaged, these stories for the most part have their complexity in the display of human nature and what drives some of us. In other words, these tend toward deeper rather than simple characters solving complex mysteries. Though there are still some wonderful mysteries along those lines, you just have to deal with a more rounded character.

Because I don't read a lot of contemporary short stories unless they're in a book, whether a single author or multiple, I particularly enjoy this series. I also approach them from two compatible but slightly different perspectives. First, like any reader, I am reading for enjoyment of the story itself. I think this is what most readers mean when they say a story is strong or weak, they mean it did or did not appeal to them. My second perspective is one that, unfortunately, is less common (though not uncommon) which is enjoyment of the form, of the elements that make a short story a short story. This allows me to find enjoyment in stories where the plot might appeal to me less even though the story is well written.

If you like mysteries and suspense stories that rely as much, or more, on looking within a character, you will find a lot here to appreciate. If you like good stories and aren't put off by too much character development (I can't understand why, but some people genuinely fall into this group: "just give me the story, don't make me work to also understand the character") you will also find a lot to like here. If you want the facts, just the facts, well, you might be a little disappointed.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.½

Both the title and the cover of Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha have intrigued me since I first saw the book. It suggests revenge on a larger scale and I was in the mood to read that kind of book. However, I didn’t expect that the stakes were that high and the emotion and plot twists involved. Although the novel is based on true events, it’s not something I was aware of (being an Australian kid at the time) so the plot twists really surprised me.

The book opens at the start of the 1991 L.A. riots as Shawn, his sister Ava, cousin Ray and their friends are going to watch a movie. The movie is cancelled, but there’s something else going on in L.A. that night and a riot erupts. It sets the tone of unease that continues throughout the book. The book then shifts focus to the current (pre-pandemic) day as Grace, a pharmacist and relatively insipid character initially, goes to meet her sister at a demonstration for a Black boy who was killed by the police. Grace’s sister Miriam hasn’t spoken to their mother for years and it hurts Grace to think of them angry at each other. Meanwhile, Ray is due for release from prison and Shawn and Ray’s family go to pick him up. We learn that Ava is dead and as the story continues, the circumstances of her death are made clearer, as is the link with Grace after her mother is shot.

The novel focuses on the reactions and emotions of Shawn and Grace’s family to the tragic events in their lives. Some wounds are old, but everyone has a perspective on them and the hurt is still fresh. Each of Shawn’s family reacts in different ways to Ava’s death, and to the events that happen linking them with Grace. The reactions of Grace’s family are seen all through her eyes, and with her own bias. She feels her dad and Miriam don’t have the proper ‘response’ to events involving her mother, but Grace’s own response is chaotic (as you would expect with such a big revelation, although she manages to put her foot in it spectacularly on multiple occasions). There are no easy answers though, as to who is ‘correct’ or has the rights to grief. It’s messy and complicated and that makes the story so captivating. As for characters, I didn’t really like Grace all that much. She seems naïve and uninterested, prepared to go with the flow which is in direct contrast with Miriam, who is ready to tackle anything head on even if it isn’t always the easiest to do. I emphasised more with Shawn and his family, perhaps because they were closer to each other and he was openly flawed, but trying to make things better.

Race relations between Black and Korean Americans are explored in a detailed way in Your House Will Pay. Cha goes through the motivations and beliefs that led to the events of 1991 and how those have carried through to the present day where one character asks if things have really changed. How the police are portrayed suggests that back then and perhaps now, the focus is not on people they believe to be on the fringe. Likewise, evidence pointing to the truth can be twisted to meet beliefs of others.

Overall, the story is intense and it’s not one you go to look for a happy ending, but rather an insight into violence, race, politics and inequality.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com

As I read this novel, I found myself wishing that Cha would stop trying to be so literary and just tell the damn story. I like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, but I was kind of sick of him by the end of the novel. Sometimes my suspension of disbelief was strained to the breaking point. I understand that mysteries, especially with amateur sleuths, often don't want to bring the cops on board, but I had a hard time buying Juniper Song's tenacious drive to solve everything herself even after she found a dead body in the trunk of her car. She just went around putting herself in dangerous situations and asking questions, and everyone always told her exactly what she wanted to know.

But my real issue was the prose style. Cha really overdid it with the metaphors. I mean, metaphors are supposed to help you envision the story, give depth and color and illuminate the prose. But time after time I would find a metaphor that made me pause to work out what exactly Cha was trying to express. I would have appreciated a leaner, simpler prose.

"My dreams were miasmic tarantulous things full of sticky voices and glinting teeth, but they dissolved in the sun without aftertaste." This one actually made me chuckle, it was so Lovecraftian. Swampy, vaporous, spidery nightmares, okay, but what does a sticky voice sound like? I imagined a sort of operatic vibrato, but I'm not sure that was Cha's intent. And there were LOTS of sentences like this, which I sometimes found beautiful, and sometimes just ponderous or confusing. But time after time, they threw me out of the story as I focused on the words and grammar and not the narrative.

Despite the above quibbles, I did enjoy the novel, and read it to the end. Your House Will Pay is in my TBR pile, so it will be interesting to see if the author's style has evolved.

Best Mystery & Suspense Shorts 2022
Review of the HarperCollins Mariner Books paperback (November 1, 2022)

[Average 4 rating with nothing under 3, bumped to 5 because of the Introduction and Contributor's Notes.]
The selection here was outstanding and the Introduction by the 2022 guest editor Jess Walter even provides a detailed account of what most captured him in each of the 20 final selections as narrowed down from the 50 initially selected by the series overall editor Steph Cha. An extensive Contributor's Notes section provides short bios on each of the authors and includes their own backgrounds on what inspired each of the stories. A further addendum provides the authors, titles and publication sources of the 30 additional stories which were not included as “Honourable Mentions.”

The following provides story setups only, so shouldn't be considered spoilers.
1. La Chingona **** by Hector Acosta. First published in the themed collection The Eviction of Hope (2021). A woman is facing eviction and is trying to raise money by assuming the identity of a Mexican wrestler on her streaming channel. Trivia La Chingona from Spanish translates as “Bad Ass Woman.”

2. Lucky Thirteen *** by Tracy Clark. First published in the themed collection Midnight Hour: A chilling anthology of crime fiction from 20 acclaimed authors of color (2021). A home invader makes a very bad choice when he selects the house of an apparently frail old man to steal from. Trivia I recently enjoyed Tracy Clark's first book in her new Detective Harriet Foster series: Hide (2022).

3. An Ache So Divine **** by S.A. Cosby. First published in the themed collection Jukes & Tonks: Crime Fiction Inspired by Music in the Dark and Suspect Choices (2021). Trouble is stirred up in The Sweet Spot honky-tonk when the singer/guitarist of a visiting band picks the wrong woman from the crowd to mess around with. Trivia I enjoyed S.A. Cosby's last novel Razorblade Tears (2021).

4. Detainment *** by Alex Espinoza. First published in the themed collection Speculative Los Angeles (2021). A child returned to his mother after detainment at the US Border is not the same as he once was.

5. Here’s to New Friends *** by Jacqueline Freimor. First published in thee themed collection When a Stranger Comes to Town (2021). An observer notices a predator zeroing in on a woman traveling alone on a train.

6. A Career Spent Disappointing People *** by Tod Goldberg. First published in the themed collection Palm Springs Noir (2021). One partner from a heist duo is on the run and meets up with a shady lawyer and a clown.

7. The Very Last Time **** by Juliet Grames. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. A woman who has lost her husband while they were time travelling is suspected of his murder. I wasn’t sure if this was meant as a science fiction tale or whether the woman was delusional.

8. The Wind ***** by Lauren Goff. First published in The New Yorker magazine. Memoir-like story told as if from a granddaughter’s point of view of her grandmother and her kids (which include the mother of the fictional writer) attempting to escape her abusive husband. This one is available to read online (if you have remaining free reads or are a subscriber) at The New Yorker January 25, 2021.

9. No Man’s Land **** by James D.F. Hannah. First published in the themed collection Only the Good Die Young: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Billy Joel (2021). Historical fiction going back to the Clinton/Gore years. Two real estate agents on Long Island become entangled with a mob family.

10. Return to Sender **** by Gar Anthony Haywood. First published in the themed collection Jukes & Tonks: Crime Fiction Inspired by Music in the Dark and Suspect Choices (2021). A criminal brother duo hijack a jukebox from a bar and hold it for ransom but also decide to get it fixed after accidentally dropping it during the heist. Trivia This story includes the return of repairman Errol 'Handy' White from the author's earlier novel Cemetery Road (2009).

11. Harriet Point **** by Leslie Jones. First published in The Southern Review (Winter 2021). A married couple start a grow-op inside their own house in Alaska (before legalisation), little knowing the structural damage and smell issues that it will create.

12. Stingers **** by LaToya Jovena (author is not yet listed on Goodreads). First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Nicely done story from a debut author which is told in reverse chronological order. A woman takes revenge for an assault.

13. God Bless America **** by Elaine Kagan. First published in the themed collectionbCollectibles (2021). The crime element isn’t clear until very late in this story which is more of an observance about the knick-knacks collected by families over the years. It also had a little subplot about jazz musicians.

14. A Bostonian (in Cambridge) ***** by Dennis Lehane. First published in the themed collection Collectibles. A rare book dealer and letters antiquarian is offered a letter from his own past for a hefty price. Trivia The title of the story refers to the protagonist being rumoured to own one of the few surviving copies of Edgar Allan Poe’s first book Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) originally published in an edition of only 50 copies under the alias “A Bostonian”.
See book cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/TamerlaneAndOtherPoems.jpg
The cover of the rare first edition of Tamerlane and Other Poems. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

15. Remediation **** by Kristen Lepionka. First published in the themed collection This Time For Sure: Bouchercon Anthology 2021 (2021). A recovering addict gets a job delivering advertising flyers door to door and ends up in the middle of a murder for hire scheme.

16. Long Live the Girl Detective *** by Megan Pillow. First published in Electric Literature. A comedic tribute to Nancy Drew with a cameo by the Hardy Boys, all of them under aliases though. This one is available to read online at Electric Literature.

17. Mata Hambre *** by Raquel V. Reyes. First published in the themed collection Midnight Hour: A chilling anthology of crime fiction from 20 acclaimed authors of color (2021). Two cousins attend a food contest with local celebrities as contestants, one of whom is an ex and a still sometime love interest. A fight ensues with a woman who is also “dating” the same contestant.

18. Turning Heart *** by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. First published in the themed collection This Time For Sure: Bouchercon Anthology 2021. Virgil Wounded Horse, a vigilante enforcer who is trying to make a career change, sets out to repossess a minivan taken by the ex of the sister of an old friend. Trivia Virgil is also the lead character in Weiden’s novel Winter Counts (2020).

19. Lycia *** by Brendan Williams-Childs. First published in the journal The Colorado Review Fall/Winter 2021. (The story is not among the free selections but I did link to the online journal issue.) A daughter travels back to Turkey when her brother has died in a war only to discover that her ex-diplomat father has stolen the body from the morgue and has disappeared with it. Trivia This story was inspired by a photograph of the Lycian Cave Tombs in Turkey.
See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Rock_tombs_%2810918510...
Photograph of the Lycian Cave Tombs. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

20. Thank You for Your Service **** by Matthew Wilson. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. An Iraq War veteran needs a scheme to raise money and decides to start a YouTube channel to track down fraudulent veterans in order to expose them on camera.

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 anthology edited by Jess Walter, is not an easy book to review. While all the tales in the book are good ones, some of the short stories are very dark and grim. For this reader, some of the tales were very intense and disturbing as they connected to things in my childhood. If I was not reading for review, I would have quickly skipped those tales and moved on.

After a foreword by series editor Steph Cha that includes the procedure to be considered for the 2033 anthology (deadline 12/3/2022), and an intro by Jess Walter, it is on to the stories. The stories are presented in alphabetical order by author name. Each tale has a listing of where it originally appeared. Unfortunately, when a magazine is listed, it does not include the month.

Hector Acosta leads off with “La Chingona.” Developers have been buying up blocks of Spokane and they have gotten their hands on Hope Apartments. Eviction is coming. Veronica’s only hope is to raise funds via a web cam deal she is doing. Who would have thought wearing a certain mask of a Mexican wrestler would make things so complicated?

62-year-old Henry Pearse is doing okay for a man of his age in “Lucky Thirteen” by Tracy Clark. It is New Year’s Eve, the streets and sidewalks are icy, and he is about to have a guest. A guest that will be very interested in attending Henry’s celebration of the new year.

Hattie Mae wants out of her Daddy’s bar. She wants a certain musician. She wants something else, something she can’t actually quantify, in the powerful tale, An Ache So Divine by S. A. Cosby.

Mercedes Larza is sure that the boy given her by border patrol is not her son. He looks and talks like him. He has the same birthmark and mole cluster. But, she is sure he isn’t her son in “Detainment” by Alex Espinoza.

As predicted, the man made his move once the train rolled out of the station. How long will the voyeur wait to intercede in “Here’s to New Friends” by Jacqueline Freimor is the question.

Todd Goldberg’s “A Career Spent Disappointing People” comes next where it is July and Shane has a problem. Actually, more than one. Not only is it too damn hot as he has to get gone from California, the Honda he was driving has broken down. His swollen foot is a mess thanks to the damage by the bullet. Nothing has been going right lately and things are getting worse now by the minute.

Francis had been gone five days when the police first arrive at the house in “The Very Last Time” by Juliet Grames. Mrs. Hatcher knows what happened. If she explains, they will never believe her. That is the first of several problems she has in this tale.

“The Wind” by Lauren Groff comes next in a very hard to read story. A mother is determined to do everything she can to save her children and get out of a horrible situation.

Barry is asleep when the guys get him in “No Man’s Land” by James D. F. Hannah. Being the “Real Estate King of Long Island” has had its perks, but winding up on a living room floor and getting kicked everywhere including where no man ever wants to be kicked, is not one of them. The real estate agent is in a world of trouble and not for what you might think considering his occupation.

Lewis Binny’s classic juke box has been stolen as “Return to Sender” by Gar Anthony Haywood begins. Obviously, Binny wants it back. He also has an idea who might have stolen the classic machine, but he is not going to tell that to the St. Louis County Sheriff’s deputy who is taking the report.

Audrie McFadden and Abe had a plan to supplement their income. Things are changing in Alaska. They have to move fast to cash in on the future in “Harriet Point” by Leslie Jones.

Making a good mixed drink is a chemical process. If you know what you are doing, you can make good ones. She likes to make “Stingers” in this tale of the same name by LaToya Jovena.

Joe is enraged and justifiably so in “God Bless America” by Elaine Kagan. Somebody keyed their cars. The cars were outside on the street instead of in the full garage. Connie is too busy cooking food for the holiday and thinking about the past which is stored in the garage.

Nathaniel buys letters in “A Bostonian (in Cambridge)” by Dennis Lehane. He buys letters of rejection as the proprietor of the Larchmont Antique Bookshop near Harvard. The reason he does is tied to his childhood and gradually explained in this complicated story.

Carter got a job handing out flyers in “Remediation” by Kristen Lepionka. In so doing, she saw a few things. She met new people. One of whom changed her life forever.

The Girl Detective is dead. At least that is what is posted on twitter. She does not feel dead. She has a lot to do. But, as she looks, she notices that she can see right through her hand. She needs to know in “Long Live the Girl Detective” by Megan Pillow.

Pugi likes to go on the hunt for men in “Mata Hambre” by Raquel V. Reyes. She likes to go hunting with the narrator. Her target this night is an old flame who is a famous tv guy now in the local area. He is a competitor in a cooking contest that is about to get very interesting for entrants and spectators alike.

Stolen valor is a subject that occasionally pops up in the media. It is the central theme of “Thank You for Your Service” by Mathew Wilson. Kyle came home from serving the country and is having a hard time of it. He comes up with a plan to document the fake vets he sees everywhere and make some money by exposing them via social media.

Janeen Turning Heart needs Virgil’s help. He is the reservation’s enforcer and she has a job for him in “Turning Heart” by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. It is a job he does not want, but it is a job he needs to do for a number of reasons.

For the longest time, father has been the Turkish ambassador to the Russian Federation. His duty to country over family had consequences. As he is apparently having some cognitive issues based on his behavior, secrets and disharmony in the family come to the forefront in “Lycia” by Brendan Williams-Childs.

“Contributors’ Notes” comes next with author bios and an explanation regarding each story from each of the authors. Those explanations cover the author’s intent in the tale, the writing process, and more in an explanation that is often longer than the bio. Those explanations are very interesting and also reflect the obvious diversity in the read.

The book concludes with “Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense Stories of 2021.” There are thirty authors and their tales are listed along with the markets that published them.

Diversity is prevalent in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 and not just in terms of race and gender, though those two are most obvious at a quick glance. Also at work here is diversity in terms of storytelling styles, themes, imagery, and more. The book is a complicated read full of solidly good tales.

It is also a very hard read at times. If you are a certain age and come from a time when nobody intervened when things happened behind closed doors and you carried those signs in public the next day, some of the tales here will land far too close to home.

The tales are about those situations, the choices that are made by and for folks, and as one of the authors eloquently put it how “hurt people hurt people.” That idea pretty much applies to every tale in the book, one way or another. These are tales that make the reader think and not always in a happy way. The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 is a complicated anthology and one well worth your time.

My reading copy came from the publisher as a NetGalley ARC.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2022

A really great book on Korean/African American relationships in LA. This zeroes in on one fictionalized version of a true story of a Korean clerk who shot an unarmed African American woman in the ‘90s and received no jail time.
The book looks at the lives of the children of the woman and the brother of the girl in the 2000s after everyone else has settled and moved on. A great book exploring vigilante justice and post trauma lives.

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022, edited by Jess Walter, gives the reader a nice cross-section of stories, all of which are well-written.

Like any collection of stories, whether single or multiple authors, there will be some that appeal to the reader more than others. That variance is minimized here in two ways. First is that these have been chosen as (among) the best of the year, so there is a certain quality standard that is met. What I think helps a lot in this anthology is Walter's Introduction. He preps the reader for each story by offering a look at what "snapped" for him in each one, without spoiling any of the stories.

If mystery and suspense are your favorite, or at least well-liked, genres then you will enjoy this collection. I won't bother giving my favorites, that is entirely subjective and does nothing to let you know whether you will like them. I will say that while I had my favorites, I enjoyed each of the stories. I use books like this to fill in those moments when I want to read but don't have the time or the desire to dive back into one of the longer reads I might be into, whether fiction or nonfiction. This volume served that function beautifully.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

I could not put this book down. A friend saw me reading Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep last summer and recommended I check out Steph Cha's book. I kind of enjoyed The Big Sleep, but wasn't over the moon. Although I enjoy P.I. movies, something about Chandler's literary private eye didn't sit right with me -- plus that sort of requisite femme fatale character and Marlowe's fear/hatred of women bothered me.

I hesitated for over six months to pick up Follow Her Home. It was so much more enjoyable than The Big Sleep. Maybe it's because I find Song, a twentysomething woman, much more compelling and relatable than any Marlowe could ever be to me. It does everything that noir should do without the drawbacks of some of the older works (which I know that Ms. Cha is a fan of). Even better, it's a mystery with an ending that is satisfying.

Great work, Ms. Cha. I will definitely be on the lookout for any future adventures of Song.

A very impressive novel that blurs the line between a crime story and social/political commentary. Although I had looked forward to reading it based on all the positive press, at the same time I was apprehensive. Race relations is a big, bold issue in our society, not one that is easy to write about with objectivity and honesty, and without manipulating the reader's emotions. [a:Steph Cha|6457876|Steph Cha|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1571636209p2/6457876.jpg] has done that.

The bare bones of the story, the beginnings of which were taken from the headlines, involves the shooting of an unarmed black teenage girl by a Korean shopkeeper in the 1990's, and the aftermath of that event. Not surprisingly, in Cha's story the lives of the families of the shooter and the victim moved in different directions over the 30 years between that time and most of the events in the book.

Since I'm neither black nor Korean, I suppose it could be said that my reactions to Cha's descriptions of both families lack validity - I'm not qualified to assess how valid they are - but I will forge ahead anyway: I think she did a masterful job. At first it seemed that her picture of the black family was more intense and complex and believable, disproportionate in comparison with how the Korean family was described. But as the chapters unfold, it becomes clear that the difference in tone is intentional, a mirror of the basic character of the two families.

Cha is a highly skilled writer, and the book is carefully structured and often beautifully worded. Her use of alternating points of view is well done, especially near the end as the pace of the story accelerates and the POVs switch more frequently. I won't comment on the ending except to note that I found it satisfying.

I can recommend this to any reader who likes a little more meat on the bones of their crime reading from time to time.

A real and powerful look at race relations without ever being preachy. Compelling plot with complex characters and loads of moral ambiguity. Highly recommend.

This was Cha's first novel. I am not a fan of Raymond Chandler, and this book is very much for Chandler fans--I imagine they would enjoy it a lot more than I did. The main character, Juniper, constantly references Chandler and what his characters would do in certain situations. Is this all funny and/or clever? It very well might be, I just do not know.

I found the characters in this book to be OK, but the plot a little weak and very convoluted--it very much needed a good strong edit (which first time novels don't often get, I think). I do think this shows the potential Cha has (and as seen in Your House Will Pay, which is a much better book all around, but still shows potential).

Greta Jung is a go-to narrator for me. She is good here, though the pace felt slow--obviously the listener can speed it up, but I like the tone of her voice as it.

An enjoyable collection. It gives a different perspective to mystery and suspense than Penzler the prior editor of the series.
Moving forward and discovering new things is always fun.

This book explores the issues of multi culturalism and racial tension in an incredibly deep and complicated manner. If you want a book to really challenge how you think about race and culture in America, this is the book to read.

A fictionalized retelling of the very real 1991 shooting of Latasha Harlins. It is a topical read that looks at racism in this country and the difficult relations between Asian and Black Americans. This book was powerfully written and subverts the stereotypical characters by giving them in-depth characterizations that force the reader to look past the schemas they might have been taught to believe, to see the messy humans underneath.

It is commendable how the author performs the balancing act of explaining Yvonne's actions without justifying them, sympathizing without affirming, and also critiques without vilifying.

Not for people who want pithy, feel-good reads to make them feel better about racial tensions. This book is a sucker-punch sort of novel that leaves you thinking about the questions its raises long after you turn the final page.

I guess this was okay? It was well-written but it wasn't exceptionally well-written? I made it through and I never felt like giving up but nor was I entranced? Endnotes for the book reveal it's adapted from a real-life event that I did not know about.

This book takes place in Los Angeles, shifting between 1991 and 2019. Though it is told in third person, the story is presented through alternating subjectivities -- primarily through Grace, the daughter of a Korean woman who committed a crime; and Shawn, whose sister, who is Black, died as a result. Although the action unfolds in a forward arc, this book is not so much a thriller as a nuanced, closely woven tale about how racism, resentment, and violence can be both intoxicating and devastating for a community; how the press and social media can both bring about and undermine justice; and how actions taken by groups can have profound effects upon individuals, who in turn form assumptions about groups. This is a novel in which most of the characters are complex, flawed, struggling, and devoted--either to an ideal or to family or to going straight or to old assumptions. Highly recommend.

“But she held tight to all her principles, and the most important of these was that family came first."

What to do when the bad guy was someone close to us?

This fast-paced novel takes place in greater Los Angeles 1991 and 2019, revolving around two families tied together by violence and injustice: the Black Halloway/Matthews family, and the Korean Park family. This novel is timely, and is also loosely based off of the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins in south LA. Cha recommends [book:The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots|16225549] for further reading.

In this novel Cha touches on racism, injustice, the police and courts, and also family, expectations, dreams, parenting, fear, and love. She also discusses gangs, the prison system, the expansion of Palmdale as a distant bedroom community for LA (with affordable housing and limited gangs), different neighborhoods, and protests.

I found this book to be very well-done and readable.

"We got our tickets already. We paid for them and everything."

"That don't mean shit."

The genesis of this book is non-fiction: In 1991, Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by a store owner named Soon Ja Du. This sparked all sorts of nationalist and racist tension and violence, naturally contrasted with the racist violence and abuse that the black community in Los Angeles have been subject to for decades. The year after, the Los Angeles Riots occurred.

Cha's book jumps off from that event but expands it into a fictional work that reaches for the sublime. By subtly displaying how humans often interact in different groups—be it in the family, at work, with our loves, other groups of people, the police, the justice system—through means of everyday language that would make Mark Twain proud, Cha has made a book that is not only intricate but simple to follow.

The reader is thrown into action and quickly learns who's who. Racial tension is brought to the surface in a way that makes me, a 42-year-old Swedish citizen, taste more than the visceral shocks to the system that Cha's simple and highly effective plot and dialogue generate.

One of the most radiant methods that Cha uses throughout the book is to show how divides are not only created between constructs like "race" and "nationality", but also between family members (e.g. the mother-daughter relationship), in heterosexuality (e.g. how men and women can interact differently than men with only men, and women with only women), in police departments, in the justice system, and even between different eras. Naturally, all of these divides between humans are merely socially constructed, and Cha highlights that fact beautifully.

Miriam was so American she renounced her own mother—a capital crime, pretty much, in a Confucian culture.

The simplicity in the writing is this book's greatest grace and provides the best framing for the story, which is simple and would undoubtedly have foiled, were it not for the author's skills.

The club leader was behind Grace, so close his voice made her jump. “Is there a problem?” The hope on his face was disgusting. Grace willed her sister to keep her mouth shut. Miriam didn’t even hesitate.

“I didn’t come here to drink with the Simi Valley Hitler Youth.”
“We’re not Nazis.”

The way he said it made Grace think he had to make the denial often.

“I’ve never had to clarify that I’m not a Nazi,” said Miriam.

Cha has written a glass onion of a book that is easily read and floats to my mind to and fro, a week after I finished it.

2020TOB--Last book I'm reading for the TOB this year and I liked it. I think this book did an excellent job of looking at racism. Based on a true event but a book of fiction. The character development of the both the families was great. Although having "justice being served" may seem a little boilerplate and expected it dug deep into feelings and what family love is.

Based off the real events of the shooting of Latasha Harlins in the 1990s, this fictional story is told with alternating chapters between two families who both know violence due to race. Grace remains oblivious of a very important part of her mother's past until her mother is shot in a drive-by in the parking lot of their job. It seems everyone but Grace knew that her mother shot a black teenager twenty seven years before, for believing she was stealing a carton of milk from her store. Shawn, the brother of the victim, who might be the most vulnerable throughout the book is more of a pillar of strength -- very admirable for what he went through. He helps others when he could have had a much different path as an orphan and his sister is taken from him. I was very happy to follow Shawn as the main character. The book is honest, but possibly not honest enough. I don't believe it's as easy as moving a short distance away to escape gang life -- when you're in it, you're in it. This might be some fictional license to move the plot. Overall, this is a necessary book on racial violence. This book reminds me of the straight-forward writing and the style of shifting between two intertwining families of Tom Piazza's 'City of Refuge'. It also reminded me of 'The Hate U Give' by Angie Thomas. Read all three!½

The subject matter (race riots and social justice in early-1990s to present-day LA) is serious and important. The story is just OK. I didn't feel drawn to any of the characters (well, maybe Shawn). The connection between the Korean-American Park and African-American Matthews families was interesting. The ending was mediocre.