coming July 9, 2019 from Viking Penguin
COPPERHEAD
From “one of the greatest literary architects and mythmakers working today,”* a novel about breaking free from the long shadows of a family legacy—and the steep price that must be paid by an entire community.
Jessup’s stepfather gave him almost everything good in his life—a sober mother, a sister, a sense of home, and the game of football. But in the years David John has spent in prison for his part in a brutal hate crime, Jessup has realized that his step-father is also the source of the lethal poison in their lives. Now, it’s Jessup’s senior year, and all he wants to do is lay low until he can accept one of the football scholarships that will be his ticket out of town.
So when his step-father is released from prison, Jessup is faced with an impossible choice: condemn the man who saved his family or accept his part in his family’s legacy of bigotry. Before he can choose a side, Jessup will make a terrible mistake—one that could ruin them all.
Told with unflinching honesty and a ferocious gaze directed at contemporary America's darkest corners, Copperhead vibrates with the energy released by football tackles and car crashes and asks uncomfortable questions about the price we pay—and the mistakes we’ll repeat—when we live under the weight of a history we’ve yet to reckon with. Alexi Zentner unspools the story of boys who think they're men, of the entrenched thinking behind a split-second decision, and asks whether hatred, prejudice, and violence can ever be unlearned.
*Tea Obreht
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