NEW from Nina Revoyr!

A STUDENT OF HISTORY and THE NECESSARY HUNGER

BOTH AVAILABLE NOW from Akashic Books wherever books are sold!

A STUDENT OF HISTORY
By Nina Revoyr
A contemporary Los Angeles story of uncrossable social lines, allegiance and betrayal, immeasurable power, and the ways the present is continuously shaped by the past.
“Masterfully and intimately suspenseful . . . Shrewdly delineated scenes, loaded conversations, and a delirious surge of desire caustically expose [Los Angeles’s] toxic ruling-class legacy of prejudice and entitlement, while stoking questions of privilege, trust, and betrayal. Wealth and power, Revoyr confirms in this tautcommanding, and delectable novel, are not shields against folly, crime, or sorrow.”
Booklist, STARRED review

Rick Nagano is a graduate student in the history department at USC, struggling to make rent on his South Los Angeles apartment near the neighborhood where his family once lived. When he lands a job as a research assistant for the elderly Mrs. W—, the heir to an oil fortune, he sees it at first simply as a source of extra cash. But as he grows closer to the iconoclastic, charming, and feisty Mrs. W—, he gets drawn into a world of privilege and wealth far different from his racially mixed, blue-collar beginnings. One evening, at an event, he meets Fiona Morgan—the elegant scion of an old steel family—who takes an interest in his studies. Irresistibly drawn to Fiona, he agrees to help her with a project of questionable merit in the hopes he’ll win her favor.

A Student of History explores both the beginnings of Los Angeles and the present-day dynamics of race and class. It offers a window into the usually hidden world of high society, and the influence of historic families on current events. Like Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby, it features, in Rick Nagano, a young man of modest means who is navigating a world where he doesn’t belong.

THE NECESSARY HUNGER
By Nina Revoyr
Akashic Books reissues Nina Revoyr’s inspired and groundbreaking 1997 debut novel about women’s basketball, class, racial identity, and friendship.
“The Necessary Hunger is the kind of irresistible read you start on the subway at six p.m. on the way home from work and keep plowing through until you’ve turned the last page.” —Time Magazine

The Necessary Hunger follows two basketball stars—Nancy Takahiro and Raina Webber—and several of their friends through their last year of high school. For some of them, their senior year will be full of glory, and the anticipation of college. For others, however, stranded in an inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood that promises little in the way of opportunity, it will mark not only the end of their time in school but also the end of their hope.

The Necessary Hunger is about families, friendship, racial identity, and young people who are nearing adulthood in a dangerous and challenging world. It is about sports as a means of salvation, about the nature of competition, and ultimately about the various kinds of love.

Our reissue of The Necessary Hunger includes a new introduction by Lynell George, and a new afterword by Nina Revoyr.

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