"Masterfully and intimately suspenseful...Shrewdly delineated scenes, loaded conversations, and a delirious surge of desire caustically expose [Los Angeles's] toxic ruling-class legacy of prejudice and entitlement, while stoking questions of privilege, trust, and betrayal. Wealth and power, Revoyr confirms in this taut, commanding, and delectable novel, are not shields against folly, crime, or sorrow."—Booklist, STARRED review"An entertaining, crisply written tale...evokes echoes of Great Expectations, The Great Gatsby, and a lot of Raymond Chandler, but with a thoroughly 21st-century setting...Revoyr's sleek prose and fast pacing move the reader through the sharply observed world of old money and the bad behavior it protects."—Kirkus Reviews"Nina Revoyr is one of Los Angeles's most sharp-eyed and penetrating chroniclers, and A Student of History only furthers her reputation. Party mystery, part...

Stevo's Book Reviews on the Internet's "Best of the Bunch" Fiction Pick"The Necessary Hunger is the kind of irresistible read you start on the subway at six p.m. on the way home from work and keep plowing through until you've turned the last page...It beats with the pulse of life...American writers dealing with race relations tend to focus on black-white or Asian-white situations; Revoyr has the imagination to depict racial issues in which whites are not the reference point."—Time Magazine"Quietly intimate, vigorously honest, and uniquely American...Tough and tender without a single false note."—Kirkus Reviews"Revoyr triumphs in blending many complex issues, including urban poverty and violence, adolescent sexuality, and the vitality of basketball, without losing sight of her characters. She creates a family, in all senses of the word, of characters who are complex, admirable, and aggravating; readers...

"Revoyr [is] an edgy and spellbinding writer with an uncanny gift for aligning human struggles with nature's glory and perils....With ravishing descriptions of the magnificent landscape, unrelenting suspense, incisive psychology, and shrewd perspectives on matters of race and gender, Revoyr has created a gripping tale of unintended adventure and profound transformation."—Booklist, Starred review"A suspenseful adventure story that explores how people react to danger, uncertainty, fear, and life-or-death choices....This is an exciting, page-turning adventure story that reveals how good people can do things totally contrary to their own moral code, and the conclusion will both surprise and satisfy."—Publishers Weekly"Revoyr travels LA's patchwork neighborhoods—delineating gangs and money, color and prejudice—and nicely sketches 'the grand, untamed Sierra.' Like Deliverance, a tense...morality tale formed in...

"[A]n absolutely compelling story of family and racial tragedy. Revoyr’s novel is honest in detailing southern California’s brutal history, and honorable in showing how families survived with love and tenacity and dignity."—Susan Straight, author of Highwire MoonSouthland brings us a fascinating story of race, love, murder and history, against the backdrop of an ever-changing Los Angeles. A young Japanese-American woman, Jackie Ishida, is in her last semester of law school when her grandfather, Frank Sakai, dies unexpectedly. While trying to fulfill a request from his will, Jackie discovers that four African-American boys were killed in the store Frank owned during the Watts Riots of 1965. Along with James Lanier, a cousin of one of the victims, Jackie tries to piece together the story of the boys’ deaths. In the process, she unearths the long-held secrets of her family’s history. Southland depicts a young woman in the process of learning that her own history has bestowed upon her a deep obligation to be engaged in the larger world. And in Frank Sakai and his African-American friends, it presents characters who find significant common ground in their struggles, but who also engage each other across grounds—historical and cultural—that are still very much in dispute.Moving in and out of the past—from the internment camps of World War II, to the barley fields of the Crenshaw District in the 1930s, to the streets of Watts in the 1960s, to the night spots and garment factories of the 1990s—Southland weaves a tale of Los Angeles in all of its faces and forms. Nina Revoyr is the author of _The Necessary Hunger ("Irresistible."—Time Magazine_). She was born in Japan, raised in Tokyo and Los Angeles, and is of Japanese and Polish-American descent. She lives and works in Los -Angeles.

"The Age of Dreaming is a masterpiece of the sort that doesn't just seduce the reader-it leaves you transformed. Nina Revoyr deserves to be counted among the top ranks of novelists at work today."-Jerry Stahl, author of I, Fatty"This is a riveting, wise, and gorgeous novel."-Mary Yukari Waters"Brilliant and original. . . . The carefully restrained voice of its narrator recalls Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day."-Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize winnerJun Nakayama was a silent film star in the early days of Hollywood, but by 1964, he is living in complete obscurity-until a young writer, Nick Bellinger, reveals that he has written a screenplay with Nakayama in mind. Jun is intrigued by the possibility of returning to movies, but he begins to worry that someone might delve too deeply into the past and uncover the events that led to the abrupt end of his career in 1922. These events include the changing racial tides in California and the unsolved murder of his favorite director, Ashley Bennett Tyler.The Age of Dreaming is part historical novel, part mystery, and part unrequited love story.Nina Revoyr was born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and a Polish-American father, and grew up in Japan, Wisconsin, and Los Angeles. She is the author of two previous novels, The Necessary Hunger and Southland, which was a Book Sense 76 pick, winner of the Ferro-Grumley and Lambda Literary awards, a finalist for an Edgar Award, and one of the Los Angeles Times' "Best Books of 2003." She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Michelle LeBeau, the child of a white American and a Japanese mother, lives with her grandparents in Deerhorn, WI—a small town that had been entirely white before her arrival. Rejected and bullied, Michelle spends her time reading, avoiding fights, and roaming the countryside with her English springer spaniel. She idolizes her grandfather who is one of the town's most respected men.This fragile peace is threatened with the arrival of the Garretts, a young black couple from Chicago; their presence deeply upsets most of the residents—especially when Mr. Garrett makes a controversial accusation against one of the town leaders.Set in the expansive countryside of Central Wisconsin, against the backdrop of Vietnam and the post-civil rights era, Wingshooters examines the effects of change on a small, isolated town, the strengths and limits of community, and the sometimes conflicting loyalties of family and justice.