The Fugitivities

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)