A novel of startling intimacy violence and mercy among friends in a Midwestern university town from an electric new voice.Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama black and queer he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other some dating women some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend a series of confrontations with colleagues and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight white classmate conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power a story that asks if it's ever really possible to overcome our private wounds and at what cost.
