FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Prentice Onayemi makes the most of the humor in this modern-day story of race, youth, and masculinity. What if you were the one of the only white students in an all-black high school? This is David Greenfeld's reality in Boston in the 1990s. His is a reversal in the traditional angst-filled story of high school awkwardness. David makes an unlikely friend in Marlon, and as they grow closer, his eyes are opened to uncomfortable truths about race in twentieth-century America. Onayemi's casual tone and conversational delivery of dialogue capture the teenagers he's portraying. The differences in how society views these boys as they become men is a lesson for listeners in what makes us different and what keeps us together. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 10/16/2017
From the chief blogger of Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign comes a provocative debut that wrestles with matters of race, white privilege, and institutional prejudice head-on. The subtly humorous, surprisingly touching coming-of-age narrative is told from the perspective of Dave, one of the only white students at King, a predominantly black and Latino public middle school in Boston. At the start of sixth grade in 1992, he befriends Marlon, a smart black student from the nearby housing projects with a passion for the Celtics and a gorgeous singing voice. The pals wade through typical middle school drama together—flirting with “shorties,” getting bullied by tougher classmates, handling academic stress. Their friendship survives most of the upheaval, until competition over a girl and Dave’s ease at getting ahead get in the way. The significance of the boys’ backgrounds is obvious—Dave might be an outlier at school, but he and his Harvard-educated hippie parents are more set up in life than most in his gentrifying neighborhood. Where Graham-Felsen shines is in his depiction of the pressures put on Marlon to rise above his circumstances and to cope with his mother’s mental illness. The novel is also a memorable and moving portrayal of a complicated but deep friendship that just might survive the weight placed on it. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
A comically geeky coming-of-age story that brims with anxiety, resentment, and a surplus of compassion . . . a riot of language that’s part hip-hop, part nerd boy, and part pure imagination . . . Green earns . . . a spot on the continuum of vernacular in the American literary tradition, from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Catcher in the Rye.”—The Boston Globe
“Prickly and compelling . . . [Sam] Graham-Felsen lets boys be boys: messy-brained, impulsive, goatish, self-centered, outwardly gutsy but often inwardly terrified.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
“A coming-of-age tale of uncommon sweetness and feeling.”—The New Yorker
“A fierce and brilliant book, comic, poignant, perfectly observed, and blazing with all the urgent fears and longings of adolescence.”—Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk
“A heartfelt and unassumingly ambitious book.”—Slate
“Sam Graham-Felsen achieves an extraordinary balancing act, creating a poignant and convincing coming-of-age story while at the same time reflecting much larger themes about race and the country’s changing social landscape.”—Jewish Book Council
“Wry and moving.”—Shelf Awareness
“One of the most original voices you’ll read this year.”—Southern Living
“Superb . . . a memorable first novel . . . [Green is replete with] wonderful characters, fully realized and multidimensional.”—Booklist (starred review)
“[Green] poignantly captures the tumultuous feelings of adolescence against the historical backdrop of a racially segregated city and country.”—Library Journal
“[A] subtly humorous, surprisingly touching coming-of-age narrative . . . a memorable and moving portrayal of a complicated but deep friendship that just might survive the weight placed on it.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Astounding . . . I’ve rarely seen an author nail a time and a place with such gorgeous accuracy and heartbreaking hilarity. The strength of Sam Graham-Felsen’s voice can lift up entire worlds.”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
“Though it raises serious questions about race and inequality with a poignancy that took me aback, Green is also funny and beautifully written, with not a word out of place, and somehow managing to be both true to its young narrator’s voice and bracingly intelligent in its depiction of a brutal societal impasse. I enjoyed this more than anything else I’ve read in ages.”—Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.
“Sam Graham-Felsen has pioneered a new genre: free-stylin’ social realism. If Balzac were a hip-hop artist, he might have produced a novel like Green.”—Heidi Julavits, author The Folded Clock
Library Journal
09/01/2017
Having honed his language skills as chief blogger for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, Graham-Felsen turns in a 1992 Boston-set story starring a boy nicknamed Green who's that rare white student at Martin Luther King Middle School. He becomes friends with Marlon, a needy, nerdy kid from the projects, and they're almost able to resist their school's terrible social pressures.
FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Prentice Onayemi makes the most of the humor in this modern-day story of race, youth, and masculinity. What if you were the one of the only white students in an all-black high school? This is David Greenfeld's reality in Boston in the 1990s. His is a reversal in the traditional angst-filled story of high school awkwardness. David makes an unlikely friend in Marlon, and as they grow closer, his eyes are opened to uncomfortable truths about race in twentieth-century America. Onayemi's casual tone and conversational delivery of dialogue capture the teenagers he's portraying. The differences in how society views these boys as they become men is a lesson for listeners in what makes us different and what keeps us together. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-09-28
A white boy in a majority-black Boston middle school gets an education on race and friendship.This debut novel is set in 1992 and narrated by David Greenfeld, aka Green, the son of middle-class parents who send him to a public middle school in the name of progressive politics. "They ‘believe in public schools,' even when they're mad ghetto," he explains early, deploying the hip-hop slang that distinguishes this otherwise fairly conventional coming-of-age story. Bullying? Check: his whiteness makes him a target, and he's quickly stripped of the expensive, gaudy outfit he buys to earn some street bona fides. Cross-cultural friendship? Check: Green bonds with Marlon "Mar" Wellings, a black classmate from the nearby projects, over Celtics basketball and a mutual interest in passing the entrance exam to Boston Latin high school. Budding self-awareness? Check: Green's growing awareness of Marlon's background is matched by his own enlightenment in matters both primal (sex) and intellectual (his Jewish background). Graham-Felsen, who has a similar background to Green's, writes sensitively about the multiple ways racism manifests in this milieu: Green and Mar's snow-shoveling hustle only succeeds when Mar isn't visible to white clients, and Green is oblivious to how Marlon is treated as suspect at a Harvard alumni gathering. Throughout, Celtics star Larry Bird serves as Green's spirit animal and symbol for the narrative where whiteness represents difference, and Graham-Felsen avoids the biggest danger by making sure Green's language never feels forced. Green's delivery is often witty ("What do white girls like to talk about? The Gap? Horses?"). But the author's focus on Green's quotidian concerns about school and girls limits attention on Marlon, who has the more dramatic story, and other threads concerning religion, Green's quirky brother, and his family's connection to the Holocaust feel extraneous and unfinished.A well-turned if familiar race-themed bildungsroman.
