Utown

Cab (Nuclear Winter) drops the reader into a decaying apartment building and its tight-knit community of residents in this immersive slice of back-alley bohemian life. Sam, a fast-talking aspiring artist and video store clerk with a cigarette eternally dangling from his lip, hangs with an eclectic circle of friends, allies, and exasperated exes in Utown, a seedy but rapidly gentrifying neighborhood “full of people who don’t want to be found.” Events conspire to shake Sam out of his slacker complacency—his apartment building is threatened with demolition, he lands a gig creating art for a new upscale coffee shop, and a wary-eyed homeless teenager named Ed crashes at his place—but his gift for self-sabotage threatens to ruin him and his friends. The most intriguing character is Utown itself, a rambling, rusted-out cityscape pocked with run-down storefronts, weed-choked parking lots, makeshift rooftop patios, and house parties where one can all but smell the stale beer and pot smoke. The Greek chorus of oddball supporting characters moves the story along whenever Sam’s self-absorbed directionlessness threatens to slow things to a crawl. Anyone who still remembers their first fleabag apartment can relate to this tale of flawed, difficult people finding their home in a world that doesn’t always welcome them (July)