New York Times-bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a captivating story about a young woman whose life becomes ensnared in her glamorous neighbour’s secret past

New York Times-bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a captivating story about a young woman whose life becomes ensnared in her glamorous neighbour’s secret past

SPRING, 2007

At twenty-six, Alicia Canales Forten feels smothered by her future. She’s in a long-distance relationship, living at home with her mother’s beliefs, saving up for her wedding to a future doctor. But after Alicia ventures out one night in the neighbourhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she finds herself lured by the siren song of youth and possibility that the striving crowd of creatives holds, and moves in.

No one embodies this milieu more than La Garza, a larger-than-life, up-and-coming fashion designer whose epic house parties fuel neighbourhood lore. La Garza’s life, observed by Alicia from her apartment across the street, seems to hold the allure and fearlessness Alicia has never dared to imagine for herself.

But when Alicia’s wealthy banker cousin moves to the neighbourhood, she finds herself increasingly drawn into both his and La Garza’s precarious lives.

Against the backdrop of a potentially life-changing presidential election and a looming once-in-a-generation fiscal crisis, Last Night in Brooklyn explores the dark compromise of the American Dream for people of colour living, unknowingly, in the twilight of a cultural moment. It is a story about everything money can buy – and the destruction of what it can’t.

"[Gonzalez's] bracing point of view animates a propulsive storyline strung with memorable characters...Brilliant party scenes, tart dialogue, and dramatic plot developments further enrich this gripping work, another step forward for the talented Gonzalez. Smart, tough-minded, and passionate: a pleasure from start to finish" - KIRKUS

"This is a fantastic meditation on a very particular moment in Brooklyn history" - BOOK RIOT

"Xochitl Gonzalez really knows how to render time and place, and this novel takes you back to Brooklyn in 2007 on the verge of massive change. It promises a story of class and gentrification and imagining different lives, and also a story about being a person who knows people in a way that feels valuable" - LITHUB

"This novel challenges the life that money can buy and the compromises of fiscal assimilation for people of color chasing the 'American Dream.'" - ELECTRIC LIT

"Part love letter to New York’s Black and Latinx communities, part historical record of Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood pre-gentrification, Gonzalez follows up on her New York Times- bestselling book Olga Dies Dreaming with a novel that is both witty and deeply sincere" - BUSTLE

"Last Night in Brooklyn is an immersive story about standing at the edge of your life and realizing how quickly the ground can move under you" - APPLE BOOKS

"With fascinating characters, rapid-fire dialogue, poignant backstories, sexy and dangerous relationships, excruciating and sardonically funny situations, sharp psychological and social insights, vibrant descriptions, abrupt shifts, showdowns, and revelations, this is an all-the-way-live novel of dreams, anguish, vengeance, and liberation" - BOOKLIST

"Since her bestselling debut Olga Dies Dreaming, Gonzalez has established herself as one of our sharpest chroniclers of ambition, class, and the hidden costs of “making it”" - OPRAH DAILY

"A vibrant coming-of-age story set in Brooklyn in 2007, this novel follows Alicia Canales Forten and her obsession with her alluring neighbor, La Garza. Gonzalez captures the energy of a neighborhood shaped by gentrification and a nation on the brink of financial ruin" - THE BOSTON GLOBE

"New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a captivating story about a young woman whose life becomes ensnared in her glamorous neighbor’s secret past, laying bare the mounting tensions at play in a rapidly gentrifying, early 2000’s Fort Greene, Brooklyn" - NERD DAILY