Excerpt from A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Puked again? Ah, puking. How come the smartest kid in the class is always the stupidest kid at parties? If you would only smoke a little weed, you could keep your liquor down, didn't anyone ever tell you that? My dad told me all about it.

Kelly rambled on and Rez looked out the window and Matthews drove and after a time no one said anything. There was nothing to say, the night had come and gone and Rez still hadn't done it, but he knew he'd have to, soon, if he wanted things to stay as they were. If he wanted things to get better.


Last night at the beach wasn't it either.

The bonfire wouldn't catch and some guys from Santa Ana set up just down the sand and gave them shit.

Hey, faggots! Who's got the tightest pants over there? Does your mommy know you're out so late?

They ignored the voices and kept trying their fire, and then an older voice shouted from the dark.

No way. No, man, his mommy don't know he's out here 'cause she's at home fucking my brother, her gardener, right now!

Man and Oh, man and That's fucked up and laughter surrounded them, and Johnson rolled the joint faster, and when it was lit, Matthews took his long deep puff and they passed it fast and smoked fast and again Rez shook his head no.

I'm good.

They left him alone and he worried about the fight coming and the black, gray, brown marks on his face from the guys in the dark and how would he explain that to his father, who would add to it, or take away from it, by calling him a girl or who knows what else? He didn't want his first time to be high and hurting, high and fighting and he waited for his friends to finish their smoke, but they didn't get a chance because the voices came out from the dark again.

Your mommy sure does take a long time, and with a Mexican too! She must like it. That OC pussy needs a trim!

Rez looked at the eyes of his friends, Peter Matthews, James Johnson, and John Kelly, names of the Bible, apostles, each a right-hand man to Jesus, and he saw them now as one. Hunched over the smoky fireless fire, their shoulder blades spiking up through their thin T-shirts as they sucked at the joint and took the taunts. When it was done, everyone stood up and kicked sand over the two steaming logs that never caught, and the voices from the darkness stepped in, took the shapes of faces and bodies and walked around them, smiles shining through the murk.

It's cool. It's cool, my brother is done with your moms. You can go home now.

Don't look so scared!

We ain't gonna waste time with you shrimps anyway. Yeah, man, stupider than hitting a girl.





The apostles shouted all the way home. High and angry, they were a single voice bellowing through the truck. My brother knows a guy from Huntington, a senior, skinhead . . . he would fuck them up for sure. Laughton knows how to get a crew together, football guys, they did it once when one of the Asian gangs gave them shit at South Coast, and on and on with dude and bro and fuck 'em and wetbacks until Rez's ears were full and his heart and gut clean with fear. Matthews, who normally drove like the sixteen-year-old stoner with a learner's permit that he was, now sped like an idiot down the 1 and the wide streets of Dana Point. Rez opened the window and let the fast wind hit his face and watched the streets and houses and yards pass by, all asleep, no witness to their aimless rage.


It was going to be today. Not because someone had an open house or there was a party or a girl he wanted to impress, but because everything had come into alignment and finally he didn't care. The recklessness was in him now and it made no difference if he puked, if he said stupid shit, if he got in trouble or addicted and spent the rest of his life begging on the street corner, a shame to his family, he was over it.

Excerpted from A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi. Copyright © 2017 by Laleh Khadivi. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.