Everywhere You Don't Belong

“This book is astonishing. You’ll be smiling even as your heart is breaking, and you’ll tip willingly into this world Bump offers you, because what appears again and again are spectacular beams of light also called love, also called hope, also called family. Gabriel Bump has established himself as a stunning talent to be reckoned with.” —Maaza Mengiste, author of Beneath the Lion’s Gaze

In this powerful, edgy, and funny debut novel about making right and wrong choices, Gabriel Bump gives us an unforgettable and lovable protagonist, Claude McKay Love. Claude is a young black man in search of a place where he can fit; born on the South Side of Chicago, he is raised by his civil rights–era grandmother, who tries to shape him into a principled actor for change. After a riot consumes his neighborhood,  Claude decides to escape Chicago for another place, to go to college, to find a new life and identity. But as he discovers, there’s no escaping the people and places that made him.

Written in a fierce and original voice attuned to the ironies inherent in our twenty-first-century landscape, Everywhere You Don’t Belong marks the arrival of a brilliant young talent.