First published 2014
Two young men leave their university in Africa to join a growing revolution in the streets. As the movement turns violent, idealism gives way to brutality and the friends are torn apart. One faces mounting danger as the revolution consumes everything around him. The other escapes to the American Midwest, where he poses as an exchange student and begins a new life. He falls in love with a social worker and tries to blend into small town America. But his past follows him. He carries the weight of what he did during the revolution and the guilt of leaving his work incomplete. Most painfully, he cannot forget the friend he abandoned, the magnetic leader who drew him into the movement and then gave up everything to secure his escape. As he builds this new American life, the secrets he hides threaten to destroy the love he has found.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, african-literature, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Africa, American Midwest
Period: 20th-century
288 pages · Kindle Edition · Knopf
Content warnings: violence