A widely praised young writer delivers a daring, ambitious novel about identity and race in the age of globalization. One afternoon, not long after Kelly Thorndike has moved back to his hometown of Baltimore, an African American man he doesnt recognize calls out to him. To Kellys shock, the man identifies himself as Martin, who was one of Kellys closest friends in high school—and, before his disappearance nearly twenty years before, white and Jewish. Martin then tells an astonishing story after years of immersing himself in black culture, hes had a plastic surgeon perform racial reassignment surgery altering his hair, skin, and physiognomy to allow him to pass as African American. Unknown to his family or childhood friends, Martin has been living a new life ever since.
