Welcome to Braggsville

Johnson's debut novel starts like a (really well-written) sitcom, when four freshmen at "Berzerkeley" meet at a party: a white woman (who occasionally claims to be Native American) and three guys (a white southerner, a Malaysian American who wants to be the next Lenny Bruce Lee, and a preppy African American who looks like a football player). But over time, Welcome to Braggsville develops into a shattering examination of race and culture. Written in a style that, like Junot Diaz's, shifts between the slang of banter and cerebral examinations of race in America as nuanced as any you'll find, it's about what happens when we can no longer fool ourselves about what we are.