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A Novel
New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a captivating story about a young woman whose life becomes ensnared in her glamorous neighbor's secret past, laying bare the mounting tensions at play in a rapidly gentrifying, early 2000's Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
Spring, 2007
At twenty-six, Alicia Canales Forten feels smothered by her future. She's in a long-distance relationship, living at home with her mother's beliefs, saving up for her wedding to a future doctor. But after Alicia ventures out one night in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she finds herself lured by the siren song of youth and possibility that the striving crowd of creatives holds, and moves in.
No one embodies this more than La Garza, a larger-than-life, up-and-coming fashion designer whose epic house parties fuel neighborhood lore. La Garza's life, observed by Alicia from her apartment across the street, seems to hold the allure and fearlessness Alicia has never dared to imagine for herself.
But when Alicia's wealthy banker cousin moves to the neighborhood, she finds herself increasingly drawn into both his and La Garza's precarious lives.
Against the backdrop of a potentially life-changing presidential election and a looming once-in-a-generation fiscal crisis, Last Night in Brooklyn explores the dark compromise of the American Dream for people of color living, unknowingly, in the twilight of a cultural moment. It is a story about everything money can buy–and the destruction of what it can't.
"Brilliant party scenes, tart dialogue, and dramatic plot developments further enrich this gripping work, another step forward for the talented Gonzalez. Smart, tough-minded, and passionate: a pleasure from start to finish." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"With fascinating characters, rapid-fire dialogue, poignant backstories, sexy and dangerous relationships, excruciating and sardonically funny situations, sharp psychological and social insights, vibrant descriptions, abrupt shifts, showdowns, and revelations, this is an all-the-way-live novel of dreams, anguish, vengeance, and liberation." —Booklist (starred review)
"The Brooklyn story I've been waiting for, replete with all the glamor, stakes, and capital D drama of a modern Great Gatsby. No one writes about ambition, money, class, and the cost of survival in a world driven by profit over people quite like Gonzalez. Equally, no one captures joy, community, and the sweetness of belonging like her either. Thrillingly alive and electrically entertaining from start to finish, Last Night in Brooklyn is a triumph." ―Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters
"Xochitl's Gonzalez's pages are packed full of the splendor and vertigo of split identities and divided allegiances, which marks her and her book as Brooklyn to the bone. A student of urban betrayal and communal memory, she not only knows where the bodies are buried, she knows how to make them get up and dance again." ―Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and A Different Kind of Tension
This information about Last Night in Brooklyn was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Xochitl Gonzalez is the New York Times bestselling author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last, a Reese's Book Club Pick longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the award-winning Olga Dies Dreaming, named a Best of 2022 by The New York Times, TIME, Kirkus, Washington Post, and NPR. Gonzalez is a staff writer for The Atlantic and was recognized as a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary. A native Brooklynite and proud public school graduate, Gonzalez holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Author Interview
Link to Xochitl Gonzalez's Website
Name Pronunciation
Xochitl Gonzalez: first name is pronounced so-cheel
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