"A daring first novel in the great picaresque tradition-both buoyant comedy and devastating satire-by the author of the best-selling story collection Say You're One of Them. Ekong Udousoro is a Nigerian editor undertaking a reckoning with the brutal recent history of his homeland by curating a collection of stories about the Biafran War. He is thrilled when a publishing fellowship gives him the opportunity to continue his work in Manhattan while learning...

Their moment was of the brief, shining sort when everything seemed possible. The gold rush of the 1980s, when the best and the brightest vied with the worst and most craven for riches, fame and the love of beautiful people. With all the force and cunning enterprise of Manhattan itself, Brightness Falls captures lives-in-the-making men and women confronting their sudden middle-age with wit and low behavior, fear and confusion, and occasionally merely...