cover image Angels of Detroit

Angels of Detroit

Christopher Hebert. Bloomsbury, $27 (432p) ISBN 978-1-63286-363-8

Hebert’s second novel (after The Boiling Season) is a gritty portrayal of Detroit as a crumbling industrial city that has become an economic and social wasteland, sparsely populated by unfortunate people who have nowhere else to go. The Motor City has been virtually abandoned by industries, businesses, and residents, “a landscape full of monuments to loss and oblivion,” leaving those few who remain resigned to despair. Hebert tells this story through the interactions of 11 major characters whose lives intersect in subtle and suspenseful ways. Dobbs is a hapless drifter unwillingly involved with human traffickers. Constance is a great-grandmother trying to coax a vegetable garden out of toxic soil. Michael is a carpenter with explosive ideas for cleansing the city. Mrs. Freeman is a corporate shill with a guilty conscience. Clementine is a 10-year-old girl with vacant neighborhoods as her playground. An insecure corporate security guard and five young, idealistic, inept anti-corporate urban terrorists round out this crafty morality tale of good people making bad decisions. Nobody pays any attention to these people; the five young terrorists can’t even get the cops to come to their amateur protest demonstrations. But then somebody starts blowing up empty buildings. Hebert wonderfully brings out his ensemble’s human qualities, whether they’re fearful, compassionate, or tenacious. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (July)