I woke up this morning hungry for a new book to read; I went to the local bookstore, Battenkill Books, and walked right into the book I was hoping to find: Nightcrawling, by Leila Mottley, a young novelist you will hear a lot about.

I’d read an awful lot about this book but was suddenly face-to-face with it, an act of the angels.

Inspired by a real crime in 2015 involving sexual exploitation, brutality, and corruption in the Oakland, Calif., police department, Nightcrawling gives voice and life to 17-year-old Kiara Johnson.

After her father’s death and mother’s detention in a rehab facility, she becomes a sex worker to pay for the rent hikes that threaten to drive her and her brother Marcus out of their apartment. She does what she needs to do to survive, without drama or self-pity (at least so far.)

The story’s emotional narrative focuses on her need to care for her disillusioned older brother, who won’t get off the sofa, and Trevor, a nine-year-old left behind by a neighbor who she comes to love and worry about.

She won’t abandon him.

My literary story of the year is that I keep running onto blockbuster first novels from young women who would never have gotten published a few years ago. It’s exciting.

Publishing, like real America, is changing, and they will never take it all away. Nightcrawler is a chilling, brilliant, powerful novel about sex, work, poverty, courage, acceptance, and police corruption.

Her tone so far is remarkable, clear, with no drama or self-pity. But there is a great deal of punch in this book already and I’m not halfway done.

I could hardly believe a beautifully written,  searingly truthful, and assertive book could be written by someone so young.

The book is an Oprah pick and has drawn rave reviews everywhere. It was an instant bestseller.

I will be up late tonight reading it; I will finish it tonight or tomorrow. I’ve cleared the decks. I’m hooked.

I’m at least one-fourth of the way into the book, so I don’t want to say any more about it now; other than it is dazzling and hypnotic so far, the reviews weren’t kidding.

Leila Mottley, who wrote the book, was born and raised in Oakland and has lived there her entire life. “The longest I have ever been away,” she said in an interview, “was about six months for my freshman year of college before we all got sent home because of Covid.”

Her family is literary and creative – her father is a playwright, and the family dog is even named for famed jazz musician Charles Mingus.

At age 16, she was named Oakland youth poet laureate. She wrote this novel when she was 19.

I can’t wait for her next novel and highly recommend this one.