num_pages: 264
description: In this alternately witty and heartbreaking debut novel Gabriel Bump gives us an unforgettable protagonist Claude McKay Love. Claude isnt dangerous or brillianthes an average kid coping with abandonment violence riots failed love and societal pressures as he steers his way past the signposts of youth: childhood friendships basketball tryouts first love first heartbreak picking a college moving away from home. Claude just wants a place where he can fit. As a young black man born on the South Side of Chicago he is raised by his civil rightsera grandmother who tries to shape him into a principled actor for change; yet when riots consume his neighborhood he hesitates to take sides unwilling to let race define his life. He decides to escape Chicago for another place to go to college to find a new identity to leave the pressure cooker of his hometown behind. But as he discovers he cannot; there is no safe haven for a young black man in this time and place called America. Percolating with fierceness and originality attuned to the ironies inherent in our twenty-first-century landscape Everywhere You Dont Belong marks the arrival of a brilliant young talent. 
language: English
title: Everywhere You Don't Belong
publisher: Algonquin Books