One of the boys A novel

Review by New York Times Review

CORETTA: My Life, My Love, My Legacy, by Coretta Scott King with the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds. (Picador, $17.) A posthumous account, based on conversations between King and Reynolds over 30 years, explores King's private and public selves and the drive behind her push for perfection. Her viewpoint illustrates a brutal era as seen by a very specific type of African-American woman - an unsung backbone of the civil rights movement. ONE OF THE BOYS, by Daniel Magariei. (Scribner, $15.) Two brothers watch their father descend into addiction after a bitter custody battle - which he described as winning "the war." As our reviewer, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, wrote, the novel swells "with wisdom about the selfdestructive longing for paternal approval and the devastating consequences of clinging to rotten models of masculinity." THE SPIDER NETWORK: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History, by David Enrich. (Custom House/William Morrow, $16.99.) In his fast-paced investigation, Enrich exposes the plot to manipulate Libor, the benchmark interest rate for banks across the world, which likely caused people to pay too much interest on everything from car loans to mortgages. AMERICAN WAR, by Omar El Akkad. (Vintage, $16.95.) In this debut novel, a (highly plausible) second civil war breaks out at the turn of the 22nd century. The United States has been ravaged by climate change: All of peninsular Florida is underwater, and the government has relocated to Columbus, Ohio. A ban on fossil fuels prompts parts of the South to secede. The conflict becomes personal for 12-year-old Sarat, a refugee who is groomed for insurgency after growing up in a shipping container, then watching her parents die. THE NATURE FIX: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams. (Norton, $15.95.) The Romantics probably had it right: Spending time out of doors can be an antidote to industrialization's ill effects. Williams, a contributing editor for Outside magazine, recounts how the outdoors can do everything from lift moods to help veterans cope with PTSD, with plenty of satisfying detail. MISS BURMA, by Charmaine Craig. (Grove, $16.) In mid-20th century Burma, Benny, a character based on Craig's Jewish grandfather, marries Khin, a woman of a persecuted ethnic minority. The family - including the daughter, the "Miss Burma" of the title - becomes entwined with the country's fate, and the story addresses questions of identity, history and trust.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 29, 2018]

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Review by Booklist Review

This short but haunting novel opens with a father and his two sons on the run. Having won the war (a cutthroat custody battle) against the boys' mother, the three Y-chromosomed members of the family are headed for a new life in Albuquerque, New Mexico. If the first chapter leaves readers skeptical because of possible antifeminist themes, they're urged to hang on. The story unfolds quickly from there. The father is soon discovered to be a heroin addict with an ever-present hankering for physical abuse. The boys come to regret their allegiance to their psychopathic father, longing to be back in Kansas with their victimized mother. The boys focus on survival, while their father flirts with the law and the laws of drug overdose. Scenes of paternal neglect under the Southwestern sky call to mind certain chunks of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch (2013). Told from the younger son's point of view, Magariel's debut is a stunning discussion of parent-child loyalty, masculinity, and how the only person we can truly save is ourselves.--Eathorne, Courtney Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The unnamed boys of the title of Daniel Magariel's spare and piercing debut novel are the 12-year-old narrator, his older brother, and their father. The trio are headed from Kansas to New Mexico to begin a new life after a brutal divorce and custody battle referred to by the father as "the war." The narrator, complicit in lying about his mother's negligence so his father could gain custody, at first treats his new life like the adventure he was promised that it would be. But when his father's violent tendencies and severe drug addiction become increasingly apparent, the narrator finally begins to make sense of the divorce and the true source of the family's demise. The urgent present action of the novel-in which the brothers adapt to their new life while tiptoeing around their erratic and largely absent father-is combined with flashbacks portraying life before the family's collapse, ultimately creating a stunning and tragic portrait of both the joys and limitations of love. Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

At just three and a half hours, Magariel's debut novel should be a quick listen-time-wise, that's obviously true-but be warned: this affecting, hypnotic tragedy will linger and haunt long after. Narrator Gibson Frazier-pitch-perfect in his characterization of the two abused brothers-is especially chilling as the father who can go from buoyant to snarling without warning. In the tumultuous wake of acrimonious family disintegration, the father takes his two sons-the younger just 12, who's been coerced into being "one of the boys" by rejecting his mother-from their Kansas home and relocates to New Mexico: "We'll all be kids again," the father promises. The brothers adapt, both proving especially-talented on the basketball court. Their father, however, spirals out of control: his cigars are replaced by more debilitating substances, his hands (and almost anything they touch) become weapons, his mind and heart increasingly incapacitated. Trapped and desperate, the brothers know they won't survive-but escape is a formidably daunting risk. VERDICT Precise, riveting, incandescent, Boys belongs on multiple shelves, in multiple formats.-Terry Hong, Smithsonian -BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Reading this short but forceful debut novel is like watching a disaster unfold on the evening news. Teens may wish they'd never tuned in, but they won't be able to look away. The story shifts backward and forward in time to reveal how a father systematically gains his two sons' complete devotion to further his own ends. Scheming with the boys to deprive their mother of her custody rights and using them to shield his growing drug addiction, the father knowingly pits the brothers against each other. But his constant demands isolate them from their peers. As their father turns increasingly violent, the brothers have only each other to turn to in their desperation. First-person narration from the younger boy, 12, is effective. His divided loyalties, guilt, and need to please his father in spite of everything are intensely relatable. Though this work moves toward an inescapably bleak climax, its brevity, surprising snippets of humor, and compelling plot make it a good pick for low-level or reluctant readers. VERDICT Schools and libraries that serve at-risk teens who use book discussion as part of their counseling will want this in their collections.-Cary Frostick, formerly at Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In an apartment complex in suburban Albuquerque, a middle schooler and his older brother watch their father circle the drain and come very close to taking them down with him."This will end the war," says the boys' father the day they leave Kansas. "No custody. No child support.In New Mexico I'll be a kid again. We'll all be kids again." Actually, the day they leave town with their father, having conspired with him to have their mother stripped of parental rights, is the beginning of the end of their childhood. Shortly after they move into their new apartment, the narrator breaks into his father's locked room when he's out, hoping to find some change to buy food. Instead, he finds his fatherwith a metal pipe, a plate of white powder, and a lighter. So thoroughly has this man already twisted his son's thinking that the boy's first worry is that he'll be sent back to live with his mother. But of course he won't be. "We are all entitled to one bad habit," explains his father. "You guys have bad habits too. You pop your knuckles, don't you?" As the man keeps his younger son out of school, sabotages his older son's basketball career, whips them with the buckle end of his belt for imagined infractions, and leaves them to care for themselves for weeks on end, their allegiance becomes an act of ferocious, misguided heroism. "Sometimes in my mind I was my father. After all, weren't he and I totally beyond forgiveness?" Joining Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life in its brilliant picture of a boyhood twisted by abuse and Justin Torres' We the Animals in both its concision and its portrait of the bond between brothers, Magariel's debut is sure, stinging, and deeply etched, like the outlines of a tattoo. Belongs on the short shelf of great books about child abuse. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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One of the Boys ONE My father was swerving around cars, speeding, honking. I rested my head on the strap of the seat belt, tried to ignore how fast he was driving, unsure if he was outrunning the storm or just angry with me. My mother and I had gotten into a fight. She'd called him to come pick me up from her apartment. He resented any dealings with her. It was midday, spring. A shadow crept across the fields. Crows looked on from power lines. The warning sirens wailed. "Let me look at you," he said. He thumbed my earlobe. "Well?" I looked to the road to remind him he was driving. "What did she tell you?" I asked. "You answer a question with a question? She said you were out of control." "That's it?" "Why is your face so red?" he said. Embarrassed, I went quiet, kept to myself. He knew I'd been crying. When we pulled into his driveway, I opened the door. He told me to shut it. I slammed it too hard. "I was supposed to go to the movies," I said. "I'd made plans." "Before the tornado watch?" I nodded. He repeated the question. "Yes, before." "Go on." "I told her I was leaving, and she blocked the door, so I grabbed the phone and ran to my room." "So today's the day she decides to start being a mother." He laughed wildly. "She had to hold you down?" he said, almost not a question. "Did she hurt you?" I tried to remember. She had wrestled me to the bed. Then I was on my stomach. She twisted my fingers, took the phone. I tried throwing her off. That was when her hand holding the phone came down on my head. Now I fingered the tender spot on my skull, pressed it hard, wanting the pain, wishing the bump were visible. "I don't know," I said. "No." "Did she hit you?" "I don't think she meant to." He pulled me close, put his arms around me, patted my back to the rhythm of the wipers. It was an awkward hug. The kind of embrace you give to a grieving stranger. "It's OK, son," he said. "It's OK." He sat me up. My older brother was standing in front of the Jeep, palms to the sky, shrugging at the rain just now quickening. "Let's go inside." *  *  * My father equated the granting of privacy with respect. Even when our bedroom doors were open, he knocked, waited to be invited in. We did not yet know why sometimes, when his door was closed, he did not answer. Since the separation he'd assigned each of us our own bathroom. His was still the master, upstairs, the same one he'd once shared with our mother. My brother's, the hallway bathroom, was on the same floor as our bedrooms. To decide who would get it our dad had measured the distance with footsteps--my brother's door was closer than mine. Two floors down next to the basement was my bathroom. Only on those late nights when, staring out my window, cigar tip aglow, my father would whisper me awake, Be my eyes, was I allowed to use the hallway bathroom, and only because he'd entered my bedroom without asking. Here, in my bathroom, the Weather Channel spoke to us from the television in the basement. My brother looked at the Polaroids developing on the sink top. The ghostly shapes taking my form. My downcast eyes. My messy hair I'd made messier, shirt collar I had stretched to look rougher. My father seemed displeased. "You look too good," he said. "You were in much worse shape when I picked you up, weren't you?" It was a question meant to convince my brother. "Yes," I said. "Maybe more light?" my brother said. He brought the lamp from the basement, plugged it in, tilted back the shade. "Now, son, try to look how you felt when she hit you." My father pressed the button. A photo reeled from the mouth of the camera. My brother placed it on the pile. We waited. "Lamp help?" my father asked. My brother shook his head. "Fuck," my father said. I held my breath, bit my lip until it bled, then took a bigger bite. Two more photos. "What do you think?" my father asked my brother. "What else can we try?" "Makeup?" my brother suggested. "You got any?" my father asked. "Upstairs," I answered. "Next to his dolls and tampons." "I could try slapping him?" my brother joked. "That might work." My father turned to me. "How would you feel about that, son?" My brother started to say something, that he'd been kidding, but my father silenced him. I'd hesitated too long. "I thought you wanted to come with us," my father said to me. "I do." "I thought you were one of the boys." "I am." "Swear to me." "I did already." My father set down the camera. "Why don't you make him swear," I said, pointing at my brother. "Because you're the one who tells your mother everything," he said. "Please, just do it," my brother said. "Just swear." "You can stay in Kansas," my father said. He turned to walk out of the bathroom. "Your brother and I are leaving without you." "No, Dad," my brother said. "Fine," I said. "I swear. Again." My father came back into the bathroom, picked up the camera. He put his hands on my shoulders, rotated me square with him. "Close your eyes," he said. I closed them. "I want you to listen to me. Are you listening? When you were born, I mean right after the birth, your mother didn't want to hold you, either of you. She passed you off to me as soon as the doctor handed you over. I'd never seen anything like it. I mean, what kind of mother doesn't want to hold her baby? I can deal with the fact that she's never been much of a wife to me. But the terrible mother she's been to you? That has burned me for years. Don't you remember what I was like when you were young? Before the war?" War was the word he used for divorce. "I used to be a kid. We used to play together. The three of us. Remember?" Yes, I thought to myself, I remember. My brother and I are sitting on the carpet watching TV when suddenly we hear a low growl. We look at each other. There is no time to react. My heart quickens the instant before our dad on hands and knees crawls into the living room, roars. We climb all over him, working together to tackle the beast. "Do you remember, son?" "Yes." He squeezed my shoulders. "This will end the war," he said. "No custody. No child support. This will get us free. Free to start our lives over. You'll see. In New Mexico I'll be a kid again. We'll all be kids again. How's that sound? Isn't that what you want?" I nodded. I heard my father load the camera. My brother, I could feel, stepped toward me. My eyes still closed, I locked my wrists behind my back. The beast is defeated, sprawled out on the carpet. My brother and I are lying on his stomach, facing each other. My brother's hair is darker than mine. Skin too. His coloring betrays a natural alliance with our father. They have the same sleepy, smiling eyes, which in sunlight turn brown as a bottle. I'm blond like our mother, with her hazel eyes. My ears, though, are my dad's, big like when he was my age. As the beast breathes, our heads rise and fall together, and with a smile he stole from our dad, which our dad probably stole from a movie, my brother's lips reveal his top row of teeth like a slow-rising curtain. I opened my eyes. My brother's arm was drawn back, ready to swing. I did not want him to hit me. I did not want him to have to hit me. "Wait," I said. "What?" my father said. In the mirror I remade my face with sorrow. This will get us free, I told myself. This was what they needed from me. With my right hand I slapped my right cheek. The left cheek with my left hand, then again, harder, alternating sides, following through a little further each time so that eventually my head turned not from the flinch but from the blow. With my right, with my left, with my right, with my left. I faced my father. "Now," I said. "Take it now." I showed him my cheek. "This angle." With my right, my right, my right. "Again," I said. "Another. Take another." My brother pulled each photo from the mouth of the camera. My father kept clicking until the button stuck. After they developed, we chose five of the Polaroids to show Child Protective Services. *  *  * An hour later, rain streaming down the one window, the basement had grown dark. The three of us quietly watched the weather report. The storm, which at first had looked like an amoeba shifting across the screen, had become unmoving bands of red and orange, as if the television had frozen, or the storm had turned sedentary, a new land formation across eastern Kansas. My father was hunched over in his chair, the heels of his shoes clamped to the bottom rung. He was about to spring. "Let's go hunt twisters," he said. We drove to the water tower. Darkness advanced, not from the east, but the west. From the clouds at the front of the storm there was lightning. An enormous flock of birds warped in the wind. My father offered a reward to whoever spotted the first tornado. We stayed there for some time, our eyes peeled, closely surveying the horizon. But we saw none and even tually drove off. At home our fence had been torn from the ground. When my father saw the damage, he laughed and said, "Looks like the storm was hunting us," and after we moved to New Mexico, he referenced this whenever something worked out, and also whenever something did not. Excerpted from One of the Boys: A Novel by Daniel Magariel 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.

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