In this novel, an academic overachiever ends up in prison and, upon his release, struggles to restart his ravaged life.

The child of demanding Haitian immigrants—his father is a lawyer and his mother a nurse— Jean Valuer is ambitiously making progress on the “American Dream Highway.” After he earns a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Cornell University, he pursues a master’s from New York University, with aspirations to write novels and teach. But those dreams are destroyed when he’s arrested for drug possession. He is caught holding a bag filled with drugs, unbeknown to him, that was given to him by his best friend, Marcus Ramirez. Jean is eventually released from prison as part of a program to deter the spread of Covid-19, and, now 27 years old and free, he finds the world an inhospitable place for a felon. His girlfriend, Julie Matthews, abandons him; his parents shun him in disgust; and he discovers that it is nearly impossible to find a job with a criminal record. In this thoughtfully meditative novel by Mondesir, Jean is pulled between his desire to find meaning in his new circumstances and his burning need to exact revenge on Marcus for his treachery: “Betrayal by someone you love is like disembowelment; it eviscerates your sense of self-worth, and causes a sort of death.” Jean’s character is drawn with remarkable subtlety—a bookish, ruminative young man, he is simply too imaginative to foreclose the possibility of redemption, but also too intelligent to see it as plausible. Moreover, while the author is careful not to reduce the protagonist to mere symbolism—Jean is a fully realized human being—he is microcosmic of the dangers faced by African Americans in the United States, and the lonely dislocation caused by the pandemic. This is a powerful work that dramatically captures the fragility of life as well as the perseverance of the human spirit.

A captivating tale about betrayal that presents impressively complex characters.