The Slip

De: Lucas Schaefer

Narrado por: Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Renata Friedman

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by LitHub, Debutiful, and CrimeReads

For listeners of Jonathan Franzen and Nathan Hill comes a haymaker of an American novel about a missing teenage boy, cases of fluid and mistaken identity, and the transformative power of boxing.

Austin, Texas: It’s the summer of 1998, and there’s a new face on the scene at Terry Tucker’s Boxing Gym. Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Rothstein has never felt comfortable in his own skin, but under the tutelage of a swaggering, Haitian-born ex-fighter named David Dalice, he begins to come into his own. Even the boy’s slightly stoned uncle, Bob Alexander, who is supposed to be watching him for the summer, notices the change. Nathaniel is happier, more confident—tanner, even. Then one night he vanishes, leaving little trace behind.

Across the city, Charles Rex, now going simply by “X,” has been undergoing a teenage transformation of his own, trolling the phone sex hotline that his mother works, seeking an outlet for everything that feels wrong about his body, looking for intimacy and acceptance in a culture that denies him both. As a surprising and unlikely romance blooms, X feels, for a moment, like he might have found the safety he’s been searching for. But it's never that simple.

More than a decade later, Nathaniel’s uncle Bob receives a shocking tip, propelling him to open his own investigation into his nephew’s disappearance. The resulting search involves gymgoers past and present, including a down-on-his-luck twin and his opportunistic brother; a rookie cop determined to prove herself; and Alexis Cepeda, a promising lightweight, who crossed the US-Mexico border when he was only fourteen, carrying with him a license bearing the wrong name and face.

Bobbing and weaving across the ever-shifting canvas of a changing country, The Slip is an audacious, daring look at sex and race in America that builds to an unforgettable collision in the center of the ring.

©2025 Lucas Schaefer (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio

Excellent portrayal of boxing gym life in Texas, Haiti

Loved how the story moved along and wove so many colorful tales and theocracy backgrounds together. Exceptionally vivid, so well written!

Wholly original and laugh out loud funny

It is challenging to create such a large cast of characters and to make each one so unique and memorable, but Schaefer has done it. A book that goes deep into exploring what shapes us and how we try to shape ourselves with wit, humor, and plot lines that you won’t see coming or soon forget.