Drowning Tucson — Aaron Michael Morales

In this “vividly rendered novel-in-stories” (Booklist), Aaron Michael Morales “wrestles with nothing less than the parameters of the human soul” (Luis Alberto Urrea). Set in Tucson's toughest neighborhoods during the late 1980s, this explosive debut follows the disintegration of the Nuñez family and the people whose paths they cross. From crooked cops to prostitutes plying their trade along the “Miracle Mile,” each person's destiny is linked by crushing poverty, the brutal codes of the street, and the harsh nature of the desert. In this place of drought and flood, “civilization” is every bit as dangerous as its surroundings. Fast-paced and unrelenting, each chapter draws the reader in with the first line and doesn't let go until the heartrending finale. Like a southwest version of HBO's The Wire, this riveting novel is an episodic portrait of a desperate, violent America, populated by characters as lethal as they are sympathetic. Genuinely relevant and never gratuitous, Morales writes about the side of humanity that society fears and ignores. Without judgment, he portrays the lives of young gangbangers, despondent mothers, gay teenage runaways, corrupt preachers, twisted pedophiles, murderous vigilantes, and broken families -- all just trying to get by. “The bleakly human debut of the new Bukowski.” -- Esquire “Drowning Tucson is desperate, full of misery of the degree you might expect reading turn-of-the-century Russian literature . . .[and] more than merely notable. It's a beautiful fever dream deftly actualized.” -- Bookslut “The meek don't inherit the Earth in Aaron Michael Morales' unsettling debut novel, Drowning Tucson. They'd be lucky just to cling to it until it's shoveled over their faces.” -- Tucson Weekly