The Atlas of Reds and Blues

A remarkable and structurally compelling debut novel based on the author's life, The Atlas of Reds and Blues imagines a fundamental difference in one detail of her past: what if, when her home was raided by officers searching for evidence of a crime her husband did not commit, the author/narrator was shot? Laskar's husband, a tenured professor, was wrongly accused of racketeering (covered at length in The New York Times)Showcasing the southern United States' simmering suburban racial tensions and powerful xenophobia, The Atlas of Reds and Blues is a timely story told from the perspective of the second-generation immigrant. A cross between Claudia Rankine's Citizen - with its blend of poetry and nonfiction, and Sandra Cisneros' seminal House on Mango Street, the book is a remarkable and structurally compelling autobiographical novel based on the author's life.For readers who love writers like Tom Perrotta, and what he reveals about the dark side of suburbia, lurking just beneath the surfaceStrong candidate for ABA's Indies Introduce and B&N Discover programsLaskar is a wonderful novelist, and this is a beautiful, relatable novel perfect for book clubs and reading groupsArt, activism, and anger surge through the novel as both motivating and healing forcesNorthern California-based author; ARCs available at NCIBA, SCIBA, and ALA MidwinterAuthor lives in Los Altos, CAAuthor is a native of Chapel Hill, NC and received her MFA from Columbia, so has strong ties on both coastsLexile Measure: 980L