January 29, 2024
Part blistering satire, part earnest bildungsroman, Boryga’s canny debut follows an aspiring Puerto Rican writer from the Bronx. While Javi focuses on high school, his best friend Gio joins a gang and is sent to prison on a drug trafficking conviction. Javi’s guidance counselor encourages him, with exploitative zeal, to “look for pity” from college admissions boards by writing an essay about his identity and his father’s murder when he was young. After he’s accepted by a prestigious university in Upstate New York, Javi learns he can leverage the roll of victim to stand out from his peers. Thinking of himself as a hustler like his drug dealer father, he writes essays for the school paper in which he capitalizes on outrage over social justice issues by embellishing his experiences (one such article presents a benign encounter with a campus police officer as an abusive instance of racial profiling). After graduation, Javi pursues a freelance writing career, and a similarly disingenuous piece ends up going viral. It’s only when he reunites with a recently released Gio, who suggests his work doesn’t ring true, that Javi begins to look in the mirror. Throughout, Boryga plays his dynamic central duo against each other to striking effect. This foray into the uses and misuses of victimhood bears fruit. Agent: Danielle Bukowski, Sterling Lord Literistic.
