Nightcrawing

Goodreads Choice Award

Nominee for Best Fiction (2022), Nominee for Best Debut Novel (2022)

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, 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.

Genres

• Contemporary Literary Fiction

• LGBT

• Race

• Adult Fiction

277 pages, Hardcover

First published June 7, 2022

Literary Awards

Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2022), California Book Award for First Fiction Gold (2022), Audie Award Nominee for Best Female Narrator (2023), Lambda Literary Award Nominee for Lesbian Fiction (2023), Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee for Debut Fiction (2023), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction and for Debut Novel (2022)

My Verdict

This debut novel is a chilling tale of power and corruption, based on a true crime involving brutality in the Oakland police department. Based on a true crime in 2015 involving institutional exploitation, brutality and corruption in the Oakland police department, Nightcrawling gives voice to 17-year-old Kiara Johnson, who, after her father’s death and mother’s detention in a rehab facility, becomes a sex worker to pay for rent hikes.

What makes Nightcrawling scarring and unforgettable as a novel is Mottley’s ability to change our language about and perception of the repressed and confined. She does this by entering the mind, body and soul of Kiara, one of the toughest and kindest young characters that I have read. Mottley handles the chaos outside and inside Kiara with a quiet, cool elegance that is entirely unjudgmental.

If opportunity and choice are the stuff American dreams are made of, they are sources of nightmare for someone who has been exploited and smeared by those in power, feeling that they have no choices and life is unsurvivable. This kind of sums up the theme of this brilliant book.

In a novel where racism is everywhere, Mottley uses anonymity with chilling effect. The police officers are referred to by their badge numbers – 612, 190, 601. Their names are disclosed only towards the very end, but Kiara's name is leaked to the press almost immediately. This is a truth-seeking, hard-hitting novel and it is an important read in 2023. This was a 5 star read for me!!!