An acclaimed African American essayist puts forth a first novel whose quirky romanticism, vivid landscapes, and digressive storytelling owe more to classic European cinema than conventional literature. The world tends to weigh heavily on a sensitive young man with an overly restive mind. And Jonah Winters, a Black, newly minted college graduate, begins the 21st century burdened with an eclectic imagination that's hemmed in by limited possibility. Raised in Paris, Jonah is pressing his cultivated mind into service as a public school teacher in Brooklyn. He doesn't get too deep into the new job before anomie creeps in: "infernal contradictions between his hopeful expectations and the downward spirals of aimless and angry students." Seeking mental relief at a Manhattan repertory movie house, Jonah runs into Octavio, a "wild Cubano" and college friend who proposes they take a trip together to Brazil, where Octavio hopes to reunite with another college friend, nicknamed "Barthes," who's trying to help poor children in Rio's favelas. Jonah promises to think it over but doesn't, really, for weeks, until one night when a retired pro basketball player rescues him from arrest for drunk and disorderly. The stranger, Nathaniel Archimbald, unloads a harsh dose of "wake-up" on Jonah that forces the young man to assess his life up to that point, which in turn compels Nathan to recall a lost love from his own life in Paris. When Jonah tells him about the prospect of heading to South America, Nathaniel hands him a sealed letter addressed to that lost love, asking him to find her. If he doesn't, "bring the letter back to me…[so] you'll remember that you always have a reason to come back." So begins for Jonah an odyssey through Brazil and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere loaded with discoveries, epiphanies, and, occasionally, physical peril looming from both within and outside his small circle of fellow travelers. At times, even with McCarthy's allusive style and illuminating observations carrying them along, readers may become unsettled by the drift and dysfunction of its protagonist. But if ever there was an example of a quest story where the quest matters more than the objective, it's this coming-of-age novel. An intellectually stimulating fiction debut. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

McCarthy's captivating debut tackles race and the American dream through the story of a Black man living in Brooklyn who grew up in Paris. Jonah teaches in a beleaguered public school, where he befriends fellow teacher Isaac, who is also Black. The two become roommates in a gentrifying neighborhood ("the migration all in reverse," Isaac calls it), and when Jonah's friend Octavio Cienfuegos invites Jonah on an open-ended trip to Rio de Janeiro, Jonah is intrigued but hesitant. Octavio, meanwhile, insists Americans are "tethered, bothered, harassed by tasks," and are better off expatriating. Isaac turns down Jonah's invite to join him ("I got to fight on the home front"), and Jonah takes Octavio up on the offer after receiving a timely inheritance. Before they leave, a public-drunkenness incident lands Jonah in trouble with police, but he's saved when a kind bystander--Nate Archimbald, a former professional basketball player--talks the cops into letting him go. Later, Nate gives Jonah a letter for a former flame who moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, and the two men bond over lovers lost to other continents (for Jonah, a woman in France). With its rich, lyrically drawn atmosphere (of Isaac's classic soul LPs, "The scratchy records somehow thickened things, popping softly in the air while they bantered") and incisive commentary, such as on the shifting fortunes of young white men in the city's literary scene, McCarthy's tale maintains an authentic feel. Readers are in very good hands with this smart, empathetic, and soul-searching writer. (June)

Jonah, a young Black American raised in Paris, lives in Brooklyn. By happenstance, he runs into a former college classmate, Octavio, who convinces Jonah to quit his high-school teaching job and travel to Rio de Janeiro with him in search of his old flame. Feeling restless in New York, Jonah agrees, and they have one night of carousing and debauchery that ends with a former basketball star rescuing Jonah from arrest. The stories they exchange about injustices and lost loves in Paris convince Jonah even more to take control of his own life. He reflects on his Black identity, his affluent upbringing, and his former girlfriend in Paris as he travels down South America. However, unimaginable news interrupts Jonah's expedition and sends him back to the place where it all started. In his insightful debut, writer, editor, and Harvard professor McCarthy explores the tension between community and individual perceptions of Black identity in different cultures. Through superb storytelling, he displays how being in a new environment can help dismantle long-held assumptions and perspectives.