Akashic Books reissues Nina Revoyr’s inspired and groundbreaking 1997 debut novel about women’s basketball, class, racial identity, and friendship.
“The Necessary Hunger is the kind of irresistible read you start on the subway at six p.m. on the way home from work and keep plowing through until you’ve turned the last page . . . It beats with the pulse of life . . . American writers dealing with race relations tend to focus on black-white or Asian-white situations; Revoyr has the imagination to depict racial issues in which whites are not the reference point.” —Time Magazine “Quietly intimate, vigorously honest, and uniquely American . . . Tough and tender without a single false note.” —Kirkus Reviews
The Necessary Hunger follows two basketball stars — Nancy Takahiro and Raina Webber — and several of their friends through their last year of high school. For some of them, their senior year will be full of glory, and the anticipation of college. For others, however, stranded in an inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood that promises little in the way of opportunity, it will mark not only the end of their time in school but also the end of their hope. As Nancy and Raina both prepare to leave the urban neighborhood that has nurtured them, they find themselves looking toward a future that is no longer easily defined. The Necessary Hunger is about families, friendship, racial identity, and young people who are nearing adulthood in a dangerous and challenging world. It is about sports as a means of salvation, about the nature of competition, and ultimately about the various kinds of love. Our reissue of The Necessary Hunger includes a new introduction by Lynell George, and a new afterword by Nina Revoyr.
NINA REVOYR is the author of six novels, including A Student of History; Lost Canyon; The Age of Dreaming, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Southland, a Los Angeles Times bestseller and “Best Book” of 2003; The Necessary Hunger; and Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “10 Titles to Pick Up Now.” Revoyr lives and works in the Los Angeles area.
Even as queer characters have begun to proliferate in YA literature, LGBTQ+ teens of color continue to be underserved—these characters are mostly gay and overwhelmingly white. In honor of Pride Month, and to shine a light on books often missing from recommendation lists, here’s a short (and by no means complete) list of excellent LGBTQ YA novels featuring protagonists of […]
