Green : a novel / Sam Graham-Felsen.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A coming-of-age novel about race, privilege, and the struggle to rise in America, written by a former Obama campaign staffer and propelled by an exuberant, unforgettable narrator.

"A riot of language that's part hip-hop, part nerd boy, and part pure imagination." -- The Boston Globe

Boston, 1992. David Greenfeld is one of the few white kids at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Middle School. Everybody clowns him, girls ignore him, and his hippie parents won't even buy him a pair of Nikes, let alone transfer him to a private school. Unless he tests into the city's best public high school--which, if practice tests are any indication, isn't likely--he'll be friendless for the foreseeable future.

Nobody's more surprised than Dave when Marlon Wellings sticks up for him in the school cafeteria. Mar's a loner from the public housing project on the corner of Dave's own gentrifying block, and he confounds Dave's assumptions about black culture: He's nerdy and neurotic, a Celtics obsessive whose favorite player is the gawky, white Larry Bird. Before long, Mar's coming over to Dave's house every afternoon to watch vintage basketball tapes and plot their hustle to Harvard. But as Dave welcomes his new best friend into his world, he realizes how little he knows about Mar's. Cracks gradually form in their relationship, and Dave starts to become aware of the breaks he's been given--and that Mar has not.

Infectiously funny about the highs and lows of adolescence, and sharply honest in the face of injustice, Sam Graham-Felsen's debut is a wildly original take on the American dream.

Praise for Green

"Prickly and compelling . . . Graham-Felsen lets boys be boys: messy-brained, impulsive, goatish, self-centered, outwardly gutsy but often inwardly terrified." -- The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"A coming-of-age tale of uncommon sweetness and feeling." -- The New Yorker

"A fierce and brilliant book, comic, poignant, perfectly observed, and blazing with all the urgent fears and longings of adolescence." --Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk

"A heartfelt and unassumingly ambitious book." -- Slate

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

CHAPTER 1 Machine I am the white boy at the Martin Luther King Middle. Well, one of two. Kev, my oldest friend and the biggest dick I know, is the other. But if you had to pick just one, it'd be me. There is a public middle school in Boston that white kids actually go to--­the Timilty--­but me and Kev lost the lotto to get in there. I begged my parents to put me in a private school instead of the King, but they wouldn't budge. They "believe in public schools," even when they're mad ghetto. The first day of school starts in an hour. If I had a best outfit, I'd be rocking it, but my closet's a disaster of secondhand pants, free tees, and sale-­bin sneakers. Kev has an arsenal of stonewashed jeans and silk button-­downs. He cops a fresh pair of kicks every couple months and he's debuting some Air Force 1s today. I'll be carrying a toothbrush and a travel shampoo in my pocket so I can scrub spots off my year-­old Filas. Pops is in his pepped-­out morning mode. He harmonizes with the folk music blasting from the stereo as he makes me a sandwich consisting of my least favorite cheese (Swiss) and last-­ranked veggie (sprouts). He fishes my insulated L.L.Bean bag out of the cupboard. It's got the initials of my extra-­white name, David Alexander Greenfeld, stitched into it. "I told you I'm done with the DAG bag," I say. "How else are you gonna keep the ice pack frozen?" he says. "Forget the ice pack," I say. "You want warm yogurt? Do it your way." I repack my lunch in a brown paper shopping bag, throw some extra gel on the dome, and grab my Walkman. Everyone follows me to the porch. Ma kisses me on my head, my little brother, Benno, shoots me a peace sign, Pops squeezes my shoulder and holds up his hand. I five him reluctantly. Then I head down the steps, turn left, and walk slowly, waiting for them to go back inside. When they do, I'll turn around and take the scenic route. The thing about my house is that it's on top of a hill. At one end of the hill, there's a park--­probably the nicest in the city--­called the Arboretum. It's huge, manicured, owned and operated by Harvard U. Pops says it has one of the biggest collections of tree species in the world. You can see the Arbs from my attic--­endless green, spilling into the horizon. But from the opposite side of my attic, you'll see steam rising off the tops of dark towers. Those are the projects at the other end of my block, the Robert Gould Shaw Homes. Even though it takes me twice as long to get from my crib to Centre Street, where all the stores--­and my bus stop--­are, I've been looping past the Arbs all summer to avoid the back of the Shaw Homes. I'd take the direct route, but practically every time I walk past the PJs these days, someone stutter-­stomps toward me, shouts, "Fuck you lookin' at, white boy?" and I end up jetting all the way back home. My first day at the King's gonna be bad enough. I'm not trying to get jacked before I even make it to school. I wave bye once more and my parents finally close the door. Then I backtrack toward the Arbs. Minutes later I'm strolling under the shade of maples, listening to Geto Boys. My bus stop is in front of a bodega, right across the street from the main entrance of the Shaw Homes. There's another dude waiting there, a black kid about my size. Thankfully he looks pretty soft: creased khakis, pilled-­up flannel, boxy black shoes, and a short, unkempt flattop, more like a clumpy cloud. His chipped leather backpack is way too full for the first day of school. I tilt my head to get a better look at the magazine he's flipping through and see it's the Boston Celtics 1992-­93 Preseason Report, a newsstand special I've been meaning to buy myself. I'm a little surprised he's reading it in public, because no one openly admits they feel the Celtics anymore. He catches me clocking him and doesn't look happy. I brace myself for a fuck-­you-­lookin'-­at. Instead, he raises his chin and says, "King?" I nod and he turns back to the C's mag. A few minutes later, the bus comes and he gets on with me. I head for the most prestigious real estate: the back of the bus. By the end of elementary school, I was rocking the rear pretty regularly, and I want to kick things off proper at the King. There's a seat next to a hulk in a smock-­sized X hoodie, who's resting his head on the window. Dude looks voting age. My guess is he's been to the Barron Center--­where they make brawlers go before they get kept back--at least once. Still, it's the only opening near the back, and I've come too far. I start toward the seat. He opens his eyes, stares out the window, and yawns, "Nah." I smile and start to sit, like I'm in on a joke with him. He stiff-­arms me in the chest and repeats, "Nah." "My b," I say. "You saving it for someone?" He closes his eyes again and says, all matter-­of-­fact, "Get your ass to the front of the got-­damn bus." I head back up the aisle toward the bench right behind the driver. Kev's already up there, shaking his head. I read Nintendo Power over his shoulder, while the usual bus ruck--­pencil fights, seat hurdling, dropkicks--­breaks out behind us. At one point our driver, a fat, crinkle-­haired white lady with a wack neon windbreaker, pulls over, turns off the gas, and shouts, "Stawp it--­all a yuz!" "Stawwwwp it," someone squawks back. "'Scuse me?" says the driver. "Shut up and drive," snaps another voice from the rear. The driver turns to me and Kev--­like all white people are a team or something--­and we bury our faces in the Nintendo Power. She turns back around, sighs, and starts the engine. We walk through the front doors and I take a whiff of familiar funk. The King smells just like elementary did: a sour blend of mop juice and soft beans in murky water. A cane-­carrying black dude in a brown corduroy blazer shakes everyone's hands as we file past him. He greets the seventh and eighth graders formally, by last name, and he even pronounces the Spanish ones with decent rolling r's. To the sixth graders, he says, "Welcome to the King. I'm your principal, Dr. Jackson. And you are?" "Dave," I say. "Oh yes. David . . . give me a second . . . Mr. Greenfeld?" he says, enunciating the shit out of my last name. "Had a nice chat with your parents last year at the open house. You ever need anything--­anything--­you come see me now, okay?" I nod, eyeing the student-­painted mural on the wall behind him. It's supposed to be Martin Luther King standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, but the way they drew him--­wide-­open mouth, bugged-­out eyes, stiff raised arms--­makes it look like he's trying to step to someone instead of uniting the races. The quote bubble bursting from his mouth says, "What's YOUR dream?" "Let's make sure you're all in the right place," our homeroom teacher, Ms. Ansley, a small black lady with a helmet of dark, dyed reddish hair, says. She calls attendance, hands us star-­speckled nameplates, and assigns us to our seats. To my right is Carmen Garcia. She has big pink glasses and shiny black hair, and she's wearing a flowery dress with ruffled shoulders. The outfit makes her look like a substitute teacher, but beneath all that she's kind of cute. To my left is Kaleem Gunderson, a tall, light-­skinned kid with faint freckles and a high-­top fade. He's got the phattest gear of anyone in the class: a Chicago Bulls tracksuit, matching red Jordans, and a thick gold chain with a roaring-­lion piece. For once I'm happy about my last name; I'm gonna be sitting next to this don all year. "Why I gotta be next to the white boy?" he grumbles to himself. The white boy--­see? Kev's in our class, too, but he's half-­Armenian. He has spiky black hair and lip scruff and sometimes people mistake him for Puerto Rican. I have curly blond hair, pink cheeks, and pale blue eyes. No one mistakes me for shit. Ms. Ansley walks to the chalkboard and slowly writes the word why. "My favorite word in the world. A three-­letter word--­a three-­letter question! Why. Why? Why!" The class stares, confused. I assume this is some kind of motivational speech. When you come up in the public schools, all you ever get is motivationally spoken to. Our classroom is covered with the same inspiring posters we had in elementary, too. One of them shows a hyped-­up white kid ski-­jumping off a mountain of books. Another says, ambition: it's contagious! "Why are we here?" she finally says. "Let's see some hands. No right or wrong answers to this one." "We got no choice," says Kaleem. Ms. Ansley smiles and says, "True enough." "So we can get our diplomas," a girl behind me says. "All right," says Ms. Ansley. "Anyone else?" The kid from our bus stop, the one with the C's mag, raises his hand. I glance at his nameplate. marlon wellings. "To learn?" Kaleem snorts into his fist. "Okay, Marlon, and why learn?" "To get smarter." "Why?" she says. "So we can, like, choose better?" "Why's that important?" she asks, her grin getting bigger. Marlon pauses. His big eyes roll upward in thought. "So we don't get tricked as easy?" "See, now we're onto something. That's a good answer, especially with the election coming up. Took some whying, but we got somewhere. Whying. That means playing your own devil's advocates. Not just thinking, On the other hand, but On the other other hand, too. The good stuff, the worthwhile thinking, usually doesn't come till at least the third round, the third why. My number one goal is to get you to start whying on your own. My number two goal is to get you out of here." She starts passing out fat test prep books. "You're my advanced class, and as far as I'm concerned each and every one of you should be aiming for Latin. Don't think I don't love you all, but I prefer not to see your pretty faces in these halls come seventh grade. Unless, of course, you want to come back and visit and tell everyone how you're doing at Latin." Excerpted from Green: A Novel by Sam Graham-Felsen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

DEBUT As a member of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign staff, Graham-Felsen helped articulate Obama's message of empathy and cooperative change across social media outlets. Here, in his debut novel, he weaves those themes into a story about two friends navigating adolescence across the racial divide. Nicknamed Green, Dave is one of the few white kids attending Martin Luther King Middle School in Boston. His life is occupied with a daily struggle to fit in, which extends from his clothing to his demeanor. Through a shared admiration for Larry Bird and the Celtics, a black classmate named Marlon becomes one of Dave's only friends and allies. Together, they manage the awkwardness of middle school under constant pressure to succeed from parents, teachers, and the larger community. As Marlon and Dave form their own individual identities, however, their similarities slowly become eclipsed by their differences, from family backgrounds to life goals. VERDICT Based on Graham-Felsen's childhood in Boston in the 1990s, this work poignantly captures the tumultuous feelings of adolescence against the historical backdrop of a racially segregated city and country. [See Prepub Alert, 7/31/17; "Editors' Fall Picks," p. 35.]-Joshua Finnell, Colgate Univ., Hamilton, NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

From the chief blogger of Barack Obama's first presidential campaign comes a provocative debut that wrestles with matters of race, white privilege, and institutional prejudice head-on. The subtly humorous, surprisingly touching coming-of-age narrative is told from the perspective of Dave, one of the only white students at King, a predominantly black and Latino public middle school in Boston. At the start of sixth grade in 1992, he befriends Marlon, a smart black student from the nearby housing projects with a passion for the Celtics and a gorgeous singing voice. The pals wade through typical middle school drama together-flirting with "shorties," getting bullied by tougher classmates, handling academic stress. Their friendship survives most of the upheaval, until competition over a girl and Dave's ease at getting ahead get in the way. The significance of the boys' backgrounds is obvious-Dave might be an outlier at school, but he and his Harvard-educated hippie parents are more set up in life than most in his gentrifying neighborhood. Where Graham-Felsen shines is in his depiction of the pressures put on Marlon to rise above his circumstances and to cope with his mother's mental illness. The novel is also a memorable and moving portrayal of a complicated but deep friendship that just might survive the weight placed on it. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The year is 1992, the place is Boston, and 12-year-old Dave Greenfeld (Green) is one of only two white boys in his sixth-grade class at Martin Luther King Middle School. It's not easy being Green when you're an outsider, an easy target for verbal (and the threat of physical) abuse. Essentially abandoned by the other white boy, once his friend, Dave is left alone until he meets Marlon, who is black, and the two strike up a tentative friendship that soon blossoms. Dave poignantly thinks that Marlon isn't just his best friend; he's his first. Up until now I had no idea just how lonely I'd been. Graham-Felsen's fine first novel is clearly about race relations at a specific time in American history, and, perhaps accordingly, the two boys' interracial friendship is not always an easy one: Dave is diffident to a fault and has a habit of betraying his friend. Worse is the specter of what Dave calls the Force i.e., racial prejudice. Will it eventually shatter the two boys' friendship? Dave tells his story in his own idiosyncratic, vaguely streetwise voice, with hip-hop overtones that perfectly capture the mood and tone of the story. He and Marlon are wonderful characters, fully realized and multidimensional, and Graham-Felsen has done a superb job of creating their environment. Voice, mood, tone, character, and setting all contribute to the making of a memorable first novel.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A white boy in a majority-black Boston middle school gets an education on race and friendship.This debut novel is set in 1992 and narrated by David Greenfeld, aka Green, the son of middle-class parents who send him to a public middle school in the name of progressive politics. "They believe in public schools,' even when they're mad ghetto," he explains early, deploying the hip-hop slang that distinguishes this otherwise fairly conventional coming-of-age story. Bullying? Check: his whiteness makes him a target, and he's quickly stripped of the expensive, gaudy outfit he buys to earn some street bona fides. Cross-cultural friendship? Check: Green bonds with Marlon "Mar" Wellings, a black classmate from the nearby projects, over Celtics basketball and a mutual interest in passing the entrance exam to Boston Latin high school. Budding self-awareness? Check: Green's growing awareness of Marlon's background is matched by his own enlightenment in matters both primal (sex) and intellectual (his Jewish background). Graham-Felsen, who has a similar background to Green's, writes sensitively about the multiple ways racism manifests in this milieu: Green and Mar's snow-shoveling hustle only succeeds when Mar isn't visible to white clients, and Green is oblivious to how Marlon is treated as suspect at a Harvard alumni gathering. Throughout, Celtics star Larry Bird serves as Green's spirit animal and symbol for the narrative where whiteness represents difference, and Graham-Felsen avoids the biggest danger by making sure Green's language never feels forced. Green's delivery is often witty ("What do white girls like to talk about? The Gap? Horses?"). But the author's focus on Green's quotidian concerns about school and girls limits attention on Marlon, who has the more dramatic story, and other threads concerning religion, Green's quirky brother, and his family's connection to the Holocaust feel extraneous and unfinished.A well-turned if familiar race-themed bildungsroman. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Sam Graham-Felsen was born and raised in Boston. He has worked as chief blogger for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, a journalist for The Nation, and a peanut vendor at Fenway Park. This is his first novel.