FICTION

You Don't Have To Like This

Harper. Jul. 2015. 448p. ISBN 9780062376602. $27.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062376626. F
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In 2009, a group of Yale graduates move to Detroit, where classmate Robert James, a successful hedge fund manager-turned-community planner, is crafting his vision of urban revitalization. Buying houses in a blighted neighborhood, they begin rebuilding (and gentrifying) the area under the mistrustful eyes of the poor, black residents who have remained. Greg Marnier, a friend of James who's looking for a direction for his life, joins him, renovating a house in the heart of the neighborhood. Thing go swimmingly at first. More residents move in, stores open up, and President Obama even visits to give the project his blessing. Greg's romantic relationship with Gloria, a black schoolteacher, seems to encapsulate everything positive happening in the community. But then, a fight between one of Greg's friends and Nolan, a longtime resident—and the racially charged trial that follows—reveal festering tensions that will ultimately doom the project.
VERDICT Markovits (Imposture), named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2013, offers a low-key first-person narration and tight blend of fact and fiction to give the novel the feel of a fictionalized memoir. Unfortunately, though this approach imparts a sharp sense of realism, it also undercuts much of the drama to be mined from the economic and cultural disparities Markovits depicts.
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