Murad Kalam's first novel, NIGHT JOURNEY, is an "impressive debut... by a writer who bears watching" (Kirkus Reviews). As Richard Wright's Native Son and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain did in their times, NIGHT JOURNEY gives narrative expression to the everyday experience of a new generation of African-Americans. As he leads his memorable main character, rising boxer Eddie Bloodpath, on a pragmatic and spiritual sojourn through the mean streets, Kalam eloquently captures the rough-edged particulars of one young life striving to survive - and rise above - the unforgiving forces of contemporary urban life.

Eddie is just ten years old when his father runs off, but he is already a hulking boy who dwarfs his older brother Marcus, called Turtle. Refusing to utter a word after their father's departure, Eddie under the sway of Turtle, who despite his diminutive stature and a pronounced stammer, is a fledgling hustler and schemer. After Eddie finds a neighbor woman dead. Turtle decides to take possession of her house, turning it into an informal brothel where he presides as pimp, despite being only 12 years old himself. In the house he installs beautiful Tessa, a girl who has just arrived in Phoenix from Oakland, and it is Tessa's gang rape by some rival boys that stuns Eddie out of silence.

Though Eddie's outward appearance and compliant demeanor lead some to believe he is slow-witted, he harbors a wise inner life that is in direct contrast to Turtle's bold, audacious behavior. Turtle, spotting an opportunity for his younger brother, sets Eddie up at a local boxing gym, where the trainer takes a liking to the conscientious young man. Soon the two brothers are on divergent paths. Turtle is sent off to prison, while Eddie works hard in the gym and at school, trying to make something of himself.

Most of all, Eddie's thoughts are with Tessa. Since she first arrived on the scene, Eddie has adored Tessa, with a love pure enough to overcome the reality other way of life. But as Eddie matures, and as he climbs the ranks of amateur boxers toward the coveted Golden Gloves, he begins to have feelings for a second woman. Marchalina is Eddie's high-school crush who, from the perspective of her middle-class background, sees his potential and pushes him in directions he would never have dared attempt.

Eddie isn't alone in his roiling emotions. Turtle is driven by rage to commit the murder of a business associate and goes into hiding. In his absence, Eddie becomes the target for police brutality. It is enough to launch him on a spiritual and intellectual quest for self, which takes him beyond Phoenix to Chicago, Las Vegas, and California. He enters the world of Farrakhan's black nationalism and religion reduced to the peculiar bureaucracy of the Nation of Islam, only to become quickly disillusioned. As his hopes and frustrations play out, Eddie yearns to find his place in a world marked by disappointment, hatred, and violence, a savage world that places little value on the life of one young black man. "Eddie's spiritual and emotional journey is convincingly rendered," writes Publishers Weekly of the novel's complex yet satisfying thematic climax.

Wonderfully original, Murad Kalam's NIGHT JOURNEY is a path no other writer has taken before, to places rendered with love, humor, and a strange wild grace," extols Susan Straight, a national book award finalist for the novel Highwire Moon. "His people are vivid and human and unique, his landscapes harsh and yet exquisite in detail. I was intrigued and compelled to read further, to find out what they would make of their lives."

"ThisT»Iistering, coming-oPage; debut, ricHwitn theTvemacular orinner-city life" (Publishers Weekly) is a powerful mediation on humanity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Murad Kalam is a finalist for the 2003 Pen/Hemingway Award for First Fiction for his novel NIGHT JOURNEY, the recipient of the 2001 0. Henry Award for a section of NIGHT JOURNEY published as the short story "Bow Down" in Harper's Magazine, as well as a recipient of the 2002 Fulbright Fellowship in creative writing. A 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School, he lives with his wife in Washington, D.C., where he is an attorney.

Night Journey
By Murad Kalam
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade
Price: $12.00
ISBN: 0-7432-4419-2