Nightcrawling
by Leila Mottley
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NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK • A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system. This debut of a blazingly original voice “bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole” (Tommy Orange, author of There There).A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, TIME, GOODREADS
Kiara and her brother, Marcus, show more are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison
But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed. One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before. show less
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"Silence starves us"
Brutal but well told. This is a tough story full of trigger warnings and real life. Kiara, our MC, tells her story and almost seems to dare you to hold eye contact with her while she does. She is growing up hard, her mother and father gone, it's just her and her brother Marcus. But she is still 17 and her brother is barely older than her and they are just barely keeping their apartment and food. A notice on the door lets them know rent is doubling and Kiara can already see - they can't pay more, let alone that much more.
But Marcus has fame and glory in his mind and can't do a minimum wage job. So it's on Kiara to keep a roof over their head. Being 17, she's struggling to find anywhere that will hire her. This is show more such a believable story. As each new low is reached, you can't help but want to flinch and stop watching but Kiara's story needs to be told, needs to be watched, and she needs eye contact. I'm glad I kept reading because the growth and turns at the end made the journey worth it.
A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. show less
Brutal but well told. This is a tough story full of trigger warnings and real life. Kiara, our MC, tells her story and almost seems to dare you to hold eye contact with her while she does. She is growing up hard, her mother and father gone, it's just her and her brother Marcus. But she is still 17 and her brother is barely older than her and they are just barely keeping their apartment and food. A notice on the door lets them know rent is doubling and Kiara can already see - they can't pay more, let alone that much more.
But Marcus has fame and glory in his mind and can't do a minimum wage job. So it's on Kiara to keep a roof over their head. Being 17, she's struggling to find anywhere that will hire her. This is show more such a believable story. As each new low is reached, you can't help but want to flinch and stop watching but Kiara's story needs to be told, needs to be watched, and she needs eye contact. I'm glad I kept reading because the growth and turns at the end made the journey worth it.
A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. show less
The Publisher Says: A NEW YORK TIMES WRITER TO WATCH - A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system--the debut of a blazingly original voice that "bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole" (Tommy Orange, best-selling author of There There)
Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, show more safe and fed.
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Nineteen! NINETEEN!! Author Mottley is all of nineteen, twenty minus one. And she's written this amazing, full-throated roar of defiance in the face of the overwhelming, outrageously powerful white hegemony that controls Oakland and California as a whole. I am revolted that this story flowed as naturally as a river does to the sea out of Leila Mottley, but it did and readers should bear witness with her as Kiara, at a revoltingly early age, learns that men will pay her to use her body for their pleasure.
It's a painful awakening. It's a godsend of money. It's a trap, it's baited with the exact things Kiara needs to walk into the trap, and it's painfully obvious that her world is over. It's a new world entirely, now that she's the one paying the rent.
I will say that, to the sensitive fleurs among us, this story will not go down well. It's honest, it's angry, it takes nothing from you and gives everything to you, and it's a gift so bitter that it makes you wish you hadn't opened it because now you know and can't pretend you don't.
In the middle of a dreary afternoon spent doing something horribly hard, watching her mother as she dies, avoiding a gang of teens who could easily have decided she was a target, riding a bus on a hot afternoon and getting into her rent-due apartment...she wonders how she can help her older brother. Because now, next to making the rent, she's got a much, much bigger problem: How to keep that brother alive. Literally not-room-temperature alive.
That ought to ring a bell in us all. If you're an adult, you most likely found yourself nodding along and recognizing those emotions. You'll likely recognize the others about regrets and about consequences and about prices you can't pay to avoid. This is that kind of a story, it's that kind of a world that Kiara and her wide found family live in. And those who make it out? They change addresses. They can't really change when so much around doesn't. This life is what you make of it, true, but is your inward being as malleable as all that?
What makes me so happy is that Author Mottley is here, is the one telling the story to my white-person eyes. I'm so happy that someone in publishing saw this manuscript, heard this rage-filled, sorrow-drenched scream of pain and said, "there's a proud, fine writer being born here, let me put the privilege and prestige of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., behind it and make people listen." So, listen: If you're wondering if this isn't more misery porn, or worse, disaster tourism, then I'm going to bring it to you fresh, this ain't that. (My Texas bleeds through when I want to make sure y'all're listening.)
When I was in the agenting business many long yars ago, an ancestor of this story came across my desk. I loved it. I loved its vernacular honesty and I loved its visceral reality. I wanted to make people read it...stop them in the halls of our building and say "just this bit right here! you'll love it!" and I was talked out of it. See, I'm white, and male, and even then that meant my privilege wasn't going to sail that beautifully loud sound-cloud out onto the lakes of white-people culture. Publishing might be doing better, but it's still the world where I was told to my face by an editor about a non-fiction book by and about African-Americans (as the polite term was then) I wanted her to buy, "who will buy it? Black people don't read."
Thirty years on I'm still appalled by that memory.
And thus it's extra delightful to me that I'm reading this auspicious debut from a young Black creator with the colophon of a very, very distinguished house that made its cultural capital a century ago by taking just these sorts of chances. ([[Joseph Hergesheimer]] won't mean much to most of y'all, but he was quite a noise on the 1917 Knopf list....) I couldn't do it; someone could, though, and that it's taken this long to make the waves it's already making (LitHub loves it, forevermore! That's Establishment imprimatur enough right there!) is, well, for me personally both validating and frustrating. I wish I'd done it; I'm thrilled it's been done.
Don't deny yourself this treat. I can't say I liked [Look Homeward, Angel] a whole lot, but it was a clarion call, a loud voice in full cry, saying, "there's a new way to do this!" That's what Nightcrawling is, that loud voice. Spend some extra time with her and learn what will make you sad to know. show less
Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, show more safe and fed.
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Nineteen! NINETEEN!! Author Mottley is all of nineteen, twenty minus one. And she's written this amazing, full-throated roar of defiance in the face of the overwhelming, outrageously powerful white hegemony that controls Oakland and California as a whole. I am revolted that this story flowed as naturally as a river does to the sea out of Leila Mottley, but it did and readers should bear witness with her as Kiara, at a revoltingly early age, learns that men will pay her to use her body for their pleasure.
It's a painful awakening. It's a godsend of money. It's a trap, it's baited with the exact things Kiara needs to walk into the trap, and it's painfully obvious that her world is over. It's a new world entirely, now that she's the one paying the rent.
I will say that, to the sensitive fleurs among us, this story will not go down well. It's honest, it's angry, it takes nothing from you and gives everything to you, and it's a gift so bitter that it makes you wish you hadn't opened it because now you know and can't pretend you don't.
We're always trying to own men we don't got no control of. I'm tired of it. Tired of having to be out here thinking about all these people, all these things to keep me alive, keep them alive. I don't got no air left for none of it. Maybe {her frenemy} is right, it's time to let go, to let one of them take over, take care of me. But I can't stop thinking about {the} call, if {her brother} is alright, if maybe he's got enough money to help us out.
In the middle of a dreary afternoon spent doing something horribly hard, watching her mother as she dies, avoiding a gang of teens who could easily have decided she was a target, riding a bus on a hot afternoon and getting into her rent-due apartment...she wonders how she can help her older brother. Because now, next to making the rent, she's got a much, much bigger problem: How to keep that brother alive. Literally not-room-temperature alive.
That {bad moment from childhood}'s sort of what this feels like: the helplessness of it. Like standing on the road that leads to here and noticing a path you didn't know existed and not being able to take it. Like the road that leads to here was never the only road and time made me forget that until these sobbing moments when I remember, when the fog clears and I'm looking back and there's a fork on the ground, another way.
That ought to ring a bell in us all. If you're an adult, you most likely found yourself nodding along and recognizing those emotions. You'll likely recognize the others about regrets and about consequences and about prices you can't pay to avoid. This is that kind of a story, it's that kind of a world that Kiara and her wide found family live in. And those who make it out? They change addresses. They can't really change when so much around doesn't. This life is what you make of it, true, but is your inward being as malleable as all that?
What makes me so happy is that Author Mottley is here, is the one telling the story to my white-person eyes. I'm so happy that someone in publishing saw this manuscript, heard this rage-filled, sorrow-drenched scream of pain and said, "there's a proud, fine writer being born here, let me put the privilege and prestige of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., behind it and make people listen." So, listen: If you're wondering if this isn't more misery porn, or worse, disaster tourism, then I'm going to bring it to you fresh, this ain't that. (My Texas bleeds through when I want to make sure y'all're listening.)
When I was in the agenting business many long yars ago, an ancestor of this story came across my desk. I loved it. I loved its vernacular honesty and I loved its visceral reality. I wanted to make people read it...stop them in the halls of our building and say "just this bit right here! you'll love it!" and I was talked out of it. See, I'm white, and male, and even then that meant my privilege wasn't going to sail that beautifully loud sound-cloud out onto the lakes of white-people culture. Publishing might be doing better, but it's still the world where I was told to my face by an editor about a non-fiction book by and about African-Americans (as the polite term was then) I wanted her to buy, "who will buy it? Black people don't read."
Thirty years on I'm still appalled by that memory.
And thus it's extra delightful to me that I'm reading this auspicious debut from a young Black creator with the colophon of a very, very distinguished house that made its cultural capital a century ago by taking just these sorts of chances. ([[Joseph Hergesheimer]] won't mean much to most of y'all, but he was quite a noise on the 1917 Knopf list....) I couldn't do it; someone could, though, and that it's taken this long to make the waves it's already making (LitHub loves it, forevermore! That's Establishment imprimatur enough right there!) is, well, for me personally both validating and frustrating. I wish I'd done it; I'm thrilled it's been done.
Don't deny yourself this treat. I can't say I liked [Look Homeward, Angel] a whole lot, but it was a clarion call, a loud voice in full cry, saying, "there's a new way to do this!" That's what Nightcrawling is, that loud voice. Spend some extra time with her and learn what will make you sad to know. show less
Astonishing debut novel written while the author was in her late teens and published last year when she was 20 years old. The subject matter is dark, bleak, and uncompromising. The protagonist, Kiara, is 17 and barely scraping by, living with her irresponsible older brother in what was at one time their family's home, a run-down apartment in Oakland, CA. There are no parents, friends, social workers, mentors, or anyone else who is willing to help. Their father is dead and their mom is a parolee in a halfway house. Brother Marcus is wasting his time trying to be a rap artist, and next door is Trevor, essentially an orphan at age 7 because his mom is on drugs. Kiara feeds him and makes sure he gets to school each morning. Increasingly show more desperate and alone, she has to take to the streets at night where things quickly turn dangerous and violent. She is failed and betrayed at every turn, but the author allows a glimmer of hope to emerge that Kiara is going to survive. Perhaps more than that, but perhaps not. This is very assured writing from such a young author. Not perfect, by any means. There is an overabundance of metaphor and the plot conveniently stacks the deck against Kiara so that she has no choice except to resort to being a sex worker. That said, Leila Mottley is crazy-talented and this debut is a dazzler. show less
A stunning debut, written the summer after the author graduated from high school while she was working at a preschool in her native Oakland. Kiara is a high school dropout struggling to find work and make rent with no help from her brother Marcus, an aspiring rapper, or their mother. She turns to a dangerous profession: nightcrawling. It’s not long before the police take notice, and that’s when the trouble begins. I love a narrator I can follow into a tough story. In that way, this book reminds me of The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner. I look forward to hearing more from this author.
This isn't an easy book to read, but there's an immediacy to it, a raw honesty that makes it worthwhile. Leila Mottley writes well, I won't qualify that by saying she writes well for her age; her writing is good. And the story she tells here, about a teenage girl living in Oakland who runs out of options and ends up walking the street, only to be noticed by the police and forced to work for them. It's a story of desperation and resilience, hope and pragmatism. Kiara is a fantastic character and Mottley depicts her vulnerability and her ability to keep trying to take care of the people she loves despite insurmountable obstacles. There's a reason this first novel was long listed for the Booker Prize.
At the beginning of the novel, Kiara Johnson is just three months short of her 18th birthday. She and her brother Marcus live in an apartment in East Oakland. Their father is dead and their mother is in prison. Their rent is doubled, and Kiara fears they will be evicted. Marcus, though older, is unwilling and unable to hold down a job; his focus is on becoming a star rapper, though his talent is questionable. Kiara tries to think of a way to find rent money, but being a high school dropout, she has no luck finding a job. Desperate, she stumbles into nightcrawling (sex work) which provides enough money to pay the rent and help her look after 10-year-old Trevor, whose drug-addicted mother has abandoned him. Then she quickly finds herself show more part of a sex-trafficking ring servicing members of the Oakland Police Department.
This is not an easy read. Much of it is heartbreaking as Kiara faces one problem after another. The book touches on several heavy issues: police corruption and brutality, sexual exploitation and violence, racism, gender inequity, poverty, misogyny, family dysfunction, child neglect and abandonment, and the unfairness of the justice system. To describe the book as intense and gritty is almost an understatement. The Author’s Note indicates that the story is based on real events (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/07/oakland-police-officers-fired-sexual-misconduct-scandal) and that makes the story that much more disturbing.
Kiara is an amazing character. Though she has virtually no one supporting her, she refuses to give up and be crushed by the problems she faces. She is abandoned by family and society, but her tenacious spirit means she remains resilient. An especially admirable quality is her fierce protectiveness of Trevor. It is not difficult to conclude that she sees herself in Trevor so is determined that he not suffer as she has. A friend tells Kiara, “’you got too much heart to be a sellout, Ki, you ain’t cruel enough for none of that. I know you wouldn’t go leaving Marcus or Trevor or me just to make bank.” Kiara’s challenges would leave many strong and determined people totally devastated. What is also amazing is that Kiara is able to find moments of joy amidst the pain she experiences.
A particular focus of the book is how women, especially racialized women, are expected to put others first. In her Author’s Note, she mentions, “Like many black girls, I was often told growing up to tend to and shield my brother, my dad, the black men around me: their safety, their bodies, their dreams. In this, I learned that my own safety, body, and dreams were secondary, that there was no one and nothing that could and would protect me.” Kiara is forced to grow up quickly because “these streets open us up and remove the part of us most worth keeping: the child left in us.” She describes herself as feeling “stuck between mother and child.” She realizes “how sacred it is to be young” and wishes for comfort from her mother but a visit to her shows her mother “asking me to fix her up.” Kiara lets her older brother pursue his dream and protects Trevor however she can, feeling she is expected to “hollow myself out for another person who ain’t gonna give a shit when I’m empty.” Though she admits feeling she is being asked “to wring myself dry of everything I got": “I’m tired of it. Tired of having to be out here thinking about all these people, all these things to keep me alive, keep them alive. I don’t got no air left for none of it.” Kiara is one of many black woman expected to sacrifice for men; in the process she becomes “vulnerable, unprotected, and unseen.”
Though used to describe some horrific scenes, the language is very lyrical. Of course, this is not surprising because the author was once Oakland’s Youth Poet Laureate.
This is an emotionally raw novel which is difficult to read but is nonetheless a necessary book.
Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuksi). show less
This is not an easy read. Much of it is heartbreaking as Kiara faces one problem after another. The book touches on several heavy issues: police corruption and brutality, sexual exploitation and violence, racism, gender inequity, poverty, misogyny, family dysfunction, child neglect and abandonment, and the unfairness of the justice system. To describe the book as intense and gritty is almost an understatement. The Author’s Note indicates that the story is based on real events (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/07/oakland-police-officers-fired-sexual-misconduct-scandal) and that makes the story that much more disturbing.
Kiara is an amazing character. Though she has virtually no one supporting her, she refuses to give up and be crushed by the problems she faces. She is abandoned by family and society, but her tenacious spirit means she remains resilient. An especially admirable quality is her fierce protectiveness of Trevor. It is not difficult to conclude that she sees herself in Trevor so is determined that he not suffer as she has. A friend tells Kiara, “’you got too much heart to be a sellout, Ki, you ain’t cruel enough for none of that. I know you wouldn’t go leaving Marcus or Trevor or me just to make bank.” Kiara’s challenges would leave many strong and determined people totally devastated. What is also amazing is that Kiara is able to find moments of joy amidst the pain she experiences.
A particular focus of the book is how women, especially racialized women, are expected to put others first. In her Author’s Note, she mentions, “Like many black girls, I was often told growing up to tend to and shield my brother, my dad, the black men around me: their safety, their bodies, their dreams. In this, I learned that my own safety, body, and dreams were secondary, that there was no one and nothing that could and would protect me.” Kiara is forced to grow up quickly because “these streets open us up and remove the part of us most worth keeping: the child left in us.” She describes herself as feeling “stuck between mother and child.” She realizes “how sacred it is to be young” and wishes for comfort from her mother but a visit to her shows her mother “asking me to fix her up.” Kiara lets her older brother pursue his dream and protects Trevor however she can, feeling she is expected to “hollow myself out for another person who ain’t gonna give a shit when I’m empty.” Though she admits feeling she is being asked “to wring myself dry of everything I got": “I’m tired of it. Tired of having to be out here thinking about all these people, all these things to keep me alive, keep them alive. I don’t got no air left for none of it.” Kiara is one of many black woman expected to sacrifice for men; in the process she becomes “vulnerable, unprotected, and unseen.”
Though used to describe some horrific scenes, the language is very lyrical. Of course, this is not surprising because the author was once Oakland’s Youth Poet Laureate.
This is an emotionally raw novel which is difficult to read but is nonetheless a necessary book.
Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuksi). show less
Mottley is a fantastic writer, and I cannot wait to read her next novel/story collection.
In this novel she looks at the police power/policed residents power dynamic--but from a teen woman's perspective. A teen whose surviving parent is in jail, whose older brother has decided to be a music star, who takes care of a neighboring addict's 9-year-old son, and who is responsible for paying the ever-rising rent or risking homelessness.
While we typically read news stories about police shootings, Mottley looks at other abuses of power--manipulation, threats, sexual exploitation, and the "favors" they do bestow. How is this still permitted? How far does their power stretch?
In this novel she looks at the police power/policed residents power dynamic--but from a teen woman's perspective. A teen whose surviving parent is in jail, whose older brother has decided to be a music star, who takes care of a neighboring addict's 9-year-old son, and who is responsible for paying the ever-rising rent or risking homelessness.
While we typically read news stories about police shootings, Mottley looks at other abuses of power--manipulation, threats, sexual exploitation, and the "favors" they do bestow. How is this still permitted? How far does their power stretch?
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ThingScore 75
The expressive, poetic phrases in this novel don’t obfuscate the dark and revolting scenes, so you’ll need to be in the right mood for this one.
added by TheFictionAddiction
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Author Information
4 Works 1,304 Members
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Distinctions
Notable Lists
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Nightcrawling
- Original publication date
- 2022
- People/Characters
- Kiara Johnson
- Important places
- Oakland, California, USA
- Dedication
- For Oakland and its girls
- First words
- The swimming pool is filled with dog shit and Dee's laughter mocks us at dawn.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Trevor and I finding our laughter just like Dee somewhere in the beyond, screeching out this moment of delirious joy, letting the water swallow us.
- Blurbers
- Orange, Tommy; Mathis, Ayana; Ozeki, Ruth; McBride, James; Eggers, Dave; Laymon, Kiese
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.6
- Canonical LCC
- PS3613.O8455
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- Reviews
- 49
- Rating
- (3.88)
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- 7 — Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 25
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