Loving Day

Uses humor and a well-paced, well-structured plot to explore identity, tribalism, and race in America. Mixed-race Warren Duffy, the narrator, grew up with strong views about his identity as a black man. His teenage daughter comes back into his life after the death of her mother and Warren is responsible for her education. Helping her figure out who she is throws him into a complicated internal and external struggle about what it means to have mixed heritage.

Duffy has a list of other problems besides these, recently divorced, no career prospects and in debt to his ex-wife, and saddled with a large house that is roofless and crumbling. A lot of the humor comes from Duffy's narration in the form of self-deprecating humor and his ability to see the absurdity in the situations he gets into. All the characters in Loving Day are well done but Duffy in particular is relatable, even though he is frequently a jackass.

There's plenty of dramatic plot points and the story ratchets up nicely to a climax that is satisfying and makes good use of all that came before.

I especially appreciated the ability of the writer to show characters' conflicting viewpoints, both internal and with each other, in a way that felt genuine to them. No once did he fall into the trap of preaching or telling readers how to think.