The Fugitivities

By: Jesse McCarthy

Narrated by: Corey Allen

By a powerful new voice in American fiction comes the story of a young Black man coming to terms with his own race.

Jonah Winters has it all. An Ivy Leaguer born to expatriate parents, he is never in want for money and calls both New York City and Paris his home. Aware that his fortunes are rare for a Black man like himself, he attempts to give back by teaching English at a New York City public school only to be profoundly disillusioned by his apathetic students. When a friend offers Jonah a chance to escape down to South America, he accepts, ready to leave the struggling African American community to solve their own problems. But before he can make a clean break, a chance encounter with a former globetrotting basketball coach alters his journey from one of self-discovery to one of maturation.

In his exciting and singular debut, McCarthy confronts difficult questions of race, identity, and class with daring and breathtaking storytelling.

©2021 Jesse McCarthy (P)2021 Recorded Books

Interesting and scattered

The beginning of the book was so interesting and captivating and then the author seemed to go off the rails in attempt to impress the reader? Not sure why Jesse McCarthy tried to combine so many literary genres. The characters were interesting but also lacked depth. The protagonist is searching for his niche and while his journey seemed typical for a young man with privilege, I was more drawn to his earliest challenges as a beginning teacher. I think we, author included would have learned so much more about Joshua the idealistic public school educator.

His meeting up with Nate was okay but also distracting because it led to too many directions. I won’t spoil the story so I’ll try to share a couple impressions, one was the incredulity of how
Characters crossed life paths and with such intimacy, seemed far-fetched and how quickly Joshua jumped from one unique opportunity to another and without benefit of any guidance for the reader.

I look forward to reading more of McCarthy’s writing as he matures. His descriptions contained such lovely word choices that I wanted to read them multiple times—like poetry.