January 1, 2015
In 1967 New Zealand, when Race Radzienwicz joins a student protest against the Vietnam War, he meets the enigmatic young man whose death will haunt him for the rest of his life: Morgan Tawhai, a Maori student who's as wise and charismatic as he is impulsive and unpredictable. Three decades later, in 2001, as Race's father dies in Washington, D.C., and his son Toby studies the premonitions of 9/11 in pop culture, from comic books to Ghostbusters, Race is still pulled back to the death of Morgan Tawhai amid the countless casualties of intervening wars. The parallels between the Vietnam War of Race's generation and the Iraq War of his son's are poignant, while Walker's loose, decades-spanning narrative is reminiscent of the filmmaker Richard Linklater's work and just as emotionally engaging. Every era has its own moral blinds spots, says Race in 1967, presciently. What would you say ours are? (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)