cover image Intimate Relations with Strangers

Intimate Relations with Strangers

David Valentine Bernard, . . Atria/Strebor, $23 (244pp) ISBN 978-1-4165-4036-6

In this profoundly disturbing debut, Bernard, a native of Grenada who moved to New York City as a child, uses elements of time travel, fantasy and classic mystery to tell a love story set in an age of terrorism. The U.S. is enmeshed in an endless, unwinnable war in Africa, the president has been assassinated and the citizenry deceived. One day, Bernard’s African protagonist, known only as “the little boy,” witnesses a beaten and bloody young girl seemingly being born from the very bowels of the earth, a horrifying event that will haunt him throughout his life. Sent to war upon graduation from high school, the boy (now “the soldier”) is taken prisoner. He eventually escapes, and the government touts him as a hero—which the soldier resists. Meanwhile, the soldier instinctively understands that he has always loved the girl he saw born now that she’s grown, that she’s somehow connected to him from another life, another world. Readers will remember this powerful, fable-like work of protest long after they’ve turned the last page. (Sept.)