NEXTCHAPTER...: September 2023-Nightcrawling

NIGHTCRAWLING

Longlisted for the Booker Prize • An Oprah’s Book Club Pick • A New York Times Writer To Watch

A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system—the debut of a blazingly original voice and “a soul-searching portrait of survival and hope” (Oprah Winfrey)

★ “Bold and beautiful.” — Publishers Weekly

★ “Lush, immersive.” — Kirkus Reviews

★ “Stunning… unforgettable.” — Booklist

★ “Impatient with energy.” — Library Journal

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A New York Times Writer to Watch, Leila Mottley is an author native to Oakland, California, with an interest in reflecting on institutional and individual inequity, liberation, and joy through writing. Her debut novel, Nightcrawling, was selected as an Oprah’s Book Club pick. Leila has performed and run poetry workshops as the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate and her work has been published in Oprah Daily and The New York Times.

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Kiara and her brother Marcus are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.
 
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. And her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
 
Full of edge, raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before.