Read by Karen Chilton

Twentysomething and restless, Skye flits between cities and stagnant relationships until she meets Scottie, a disarming and disheveled British traveler, and Pieces, an enigmatic artist living in New York. The three recognize each other as kindred spirits-Black, punk, whimsical, revolutionary-and fall in together, leading Skye on an unlikely adventure across the Atlantic. They live a glorious, subterranean existence in 1990s London: making multimedia art, throwing drug-fueled parties, and eking out a living by busking in Tube stations, until their existence is jeopardized by the rise of CCTV and policing.In fluid and unrelenting prose, Jamika Ajalon's debut novel explores youth, poetry, and what it means to come to terms with queerness. Skye Papers is an imaginative, episodic group portrait of a transatlantic art scene spearheaded by people of color-and of the fraught, dystopian reality of increasing state surveillance. "[A] spectacular performance...Chilton's voice is chameleon-like…[and] Chilton's ability to fully embody each character makes listeners feel as though they are right there in the moment with Skye and her crew-as surprised by each new revelation as they are." "[In] the rhythmic, riffing, incantatory prose…we get lost in a world that Ajalon renders with precision and lyricism that elude her main character." "Though the novel is deftly plotted and full of well-rounded, interesting characters, the desperate anger of Skye and Pieces' relationship is meant to be abrasive, giving the book a jagged edge." "A visceral narrative of artists of color, Jamika Ajalon's debut novel bursts forth with visionary aim." "Too real to be sci-fi, with a gritty imagination, Skye Papers merges race and class, queerness and anarchy, all while keeping a Philip K. Dick-ensian eye on the entities with the power to monitor and control our freedoms." "Skye Papers is a story of becoming-part love story, part artistic path, part surveillance-state dystopia-from a wholly unique and necessary new voice." "Skye Papers is not only one of the most addictive reads of this year, it's a must reread to unlock the living labyrinths of loving madly, performing badly, and surviving oneself while daring to risk everything to experience a creative life beyond the fringes of expectation and limitation."

Mode of access: World Wide Web