Power, corruption, and survival are the driving forces at the heart of Leila Mottley’s debut novel Nightcrawling, which was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. In rapidly gentrifying Oakland, 17-year-old Kiara is trying to pay her family’s ever-increasing rent. Though Mottley’s protagonist is technically a teenager, she lost her childhood long ago: her Black Panther father is dead, her mother is incarcerated, and her brother is so convinced of his future rap career that he won’t get a job. When Kiara becomes desperate for cash, she’s forced to turn to sex work of a dangerously lurid bent—servicing local police officers. While this brutal tale is a searing indictment of an unjust system, it has roots in a sobering reality. Mottley, who wrote the book just after graduating high school, drew inspiration from a real-life sexual misconduct case in Oakland. —Cady Lang
Buy Now: Nightcrawling on Bookshop | Amazon
- Florence Pugh Might Just Save the Movie Star From Extinction
- Why You Can't Remember That Taylor Swift Concert All Too Well
- What to Know About the History of the Debt Ceiling
- 10 Questions the Succession Finale Needs to Answer
- How Four Trans Teens Threw the Prom of Their Dreams
- Why Turkey’s Longtime Leader Is an Electoral Powerhouse
- The Ancient Roots of Psychotherapy
- Why Rich People Aren't Using Phone Cases
