One of the narrators is Jan, a young white woman who is an aspiring horse jockey that moves to upstate New York from Arkansas to chase her horseracing dreams, and her father’s ghost—he was a famous jockey who mysteriously drowned in a lake before she was born.

Then there’s Deesh, a black man, and former basketball star, from the Bronx, who is in jail and fighting for his life.

When the novel starts out Deesh is in jail for murder, and his lawyer tells him the court wants to get him the death penalty. We learn later that Deesh is innocent—all he did was help his friend one day with a side job where they disposed of a forty gallon drum, which Deesh knew was suspect, but he went with it anyway because he needed the money, and he didn’t want to disappoint his friends.

Inside that forty gallon drum was the dead body of one of Jan’s acquaintances—someone who had too many ups and downs at the Finger Lakes racetrack and pissed off the wrong guys. Now, how the novel works is Jan shows up at the jail in the very beginning of the story and asks Deesh to tell her his side of the story. Then the rest of the novel is Jan and Deesh going back and forth, telling their versions of what happened at the racetrack, before and after, and how that landed Deesh behind bars. The premise is that they are speaking to one another and you are listening in.

The fact that they are speaking these stories out loud allows for some fast-paced sentences in a well-rendered stream-of-consciousness style, which is significant in the success of this novel. Watch Me Go is absolutely a page-turner, a “what’s gonna happen . . . what’s gonna happen . . .” kind of book that is brilliantly plotted, but it is also beautifully written and very evocative in its details. It’s a thriller novel for people who love language—courageous, vulnerable, sincere language, and who still seek touching relationships amongst the whodunit.

Because what drives both Deesh and Jan is the tremendous loss they feel from the abandonment by people who were so close to them. Deesh and Jan are of a different race, gender, and stature (a jockey and a basketball jock), so they may seem worlds away from each other, but they are still driven by the same inner core. For Jan it is the love and loss from her deceased father, and for Deesh, it’s Madalynn, the girl who got away, and the fact that he lives in a prejudiced world that doesn’t accept him. As much as this book is a page- turner for the “what’s gonna happen . . . what’s gonna happen . . . “ feeling, it’s the pain in the inner core of these people that makes us keep reading, keep going on until the final stretch.

The title is Watch Me Go, and both Jan and Deesh are both on the run in their own way, but all they really want is for people to stay.

Now that that’s out of the way.

Every story in Ms. Massi’s new collection, Jagged, Pointy Thing, is brutal in its own way. Some pieces are funny, some vignettes that last only a page, but all of them are driven by this chaotic, primitive push for self-discovery, someone who has thrust themselves upon the world, giving their everything: their ideas, their inner fears and desires, their body. In “Chameleon” the main character Clementine goes to see her literature professor, a woman named Dr. Royal who she claims to be in love with, to tell her she’s running away to Canada to work on a farm. As she tells her professor this the sexual tension is overwhelming as they discuss the kind of physical labor she would encounter. I don’t think there has ever been a more intense conversation about sore muscles in the history of literature. “Window Pane” is a few girlfriends reuniting during the holidays after their first semester at college. Their conversation is political, but they also admit to their first time masturbating. “Family Portrait” is the story of a couple who invites a nineteen year college dropout to live with them in exchange for sexual favors.

All of the stories in the collection are very sexual in nature, but to simply label them as erotic would be an insult to their complexity. For instance, what Massi does with silence, the gaps in conversation between her characters, is fascinating. It’s very clear that there is so much unsaid. The book is an examination of the human experience through our bodies, the way we treat each other, feel each other, manipulate and love each other. But really, Jagged, Pointy Thing is about the self, how the individual feels as they navigate this intimate world. How do you view your naked body after its been seen by another person? How do you view them differently after you’ve seen them orgasm? And how do you feel as you walk away from a motel after you’ve had your first homosexual experience?

Jagged, Pointy Thing will not be in any high school curriculum anytime soon, but it’s a valuable read for anyone during their sexual awakening, or during any time of personal discovery. It’s about touching upon a piece of cruelty to then be able to recognize beauty. That moment when you realize the world was not what you thought it was. That it was something different altogether. Yet, after you go through all that transformation you come back to know that some things will still always be what they were.

The Last Days of California, Miller’s first novel, is also a road story. We follow the characters from the Waffle Houses of Louisiana, to El Paso and West Texas, through New Mexico, Phoenix, all the while the family arguing over whether to eat at Burger King or Taco Bell, their father insisting they find the off-the-beaten-track, Mom-and-Pop family restaurants to get some local flavor. Last Days is a chance to rediscover America, the America of Google and GPS, but America nonetheless. We witness all the changes our country has made, yet see that certain qualities, the way we speak to one another, treat one another, remains the same. Miller’s America may have more functionality than Nabokov’s Lolita or Kerouac’s On the Road, but the heart remains the same.

This includes many touching scenes, such as when three intimidating looking strangers pull over to aid the family after they blew out a tire. They were full of fear and apprehensiveness watching the men approach, yet all these guys wanted to do was help their fellow man. They wouldn’t accept money afterwards, and they had no motive. Some might say that “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” but all over Last Days there’s remnants of the human kindness that lingers all around us, refusing to abandon us in this fast-moving world.

This kindness reveals itself in the most powerful of ways through the relationship of Jess and her older, prettier sister, Elise. While the two of them clearly have a rivalry, in which they establish their identity through the deficiencies of the other (Elise is the pretty cheerleader, an atheist with an attitude, who gets all of the boys’ attention; while Jess is the good girl with good grades, who tries to continue to believe in Him even though she’s started having her doubts. She’s the girl you can always count on to do the right thing, while Elise is the girl always looking for trouble.), there are moments of sheer love and affection, protectiveness and warmth, that show us how caring and generous people can be. As easy as it would be to criticize their father and mother for their extreme beliefs, it’s clear they did a good job parenting because these girls would do anything for each other.

The Last Days of California is a sweet and touching book, voiced by a teenage girl trying to find herself amidst the chaos of her family. Her self-consciousness—with her body, but also her mind and spirit—is relatable, charming, honest, and powerful. She’s trying to come to her own answers to life’s questions: who am I? Is there a God? Does love exist, and if it does, what is it? Can two people continue loving each other for decades? And in hearing her work all this out, we remember when we asked ourselves the same questions, how we came to figure out who we are and what we believe. Miller’s novel is a reminder of how fragile we can be, and how that is precisely the reason why we are beautiful.

I absolutely loved it. Bernal’s The Mongolian Conspiracy is exciting, sexy, hilarious, and politically interesting. There are the typical elements of mystery writing which can seem campy; for instance, the witness interrogation where they give you that one perfect clue that they just so happen to know, and the Cold War International Intrigue  . . . , yet it still remains very human. A wonderful, charming book where you always need to find out what’s going to happen next.

The novel was originally published in Mexico City in 1969 and was recently translated by Katherine Silver for New Directions. The Mongolian Conspiracy, or, El complot mongol, recounts the story of Filiberto García, an old Mexican hitman who “ain’t so much a good guy as he is just a bad mother fucker. I mean, he gets paid by people to fuck guys up,”^[1] as he is commissioned by his government to join a group of elite spies—one American and one Russian—to foil a suspected assassination attempt by Mao’s China on the president of the United States during his upcoming visit to Mexico City. Garcia’s response to the assignment, which has far more global significance than anything he has done, is funny. He is far from passionate about the job, and in a way, considers himself unfit, unprepared, and outmatched. Because this is International Intrigue—the Russians, Chinese, Americans, Cubans, the leaked intelligence coming from Outer Mongolia (“Fucking Outer Mongolia!” as García says), and he thinks he is an amateur only fit to produce “stiffs.” In his ruthless self-deprecation, García is charming and honest to the core. He is the murderer and admitted rapist that you can’t help but root for.

And you know about his fears, self-doubt, and insecurity because he shares the narrative load in the novel. The author does an amazing job at switching back and forth from an omniscient third-person narrator directly, and without notice, into the first-person inner monologues by García. At first this was confusing. In my experience, the thoughts of a character went into italics, but Bernal does away with them and forces you to shift in and out of García’s head, like this:

Night began to spread dirty grays over the streets of Luis Moya, and the traffic, as usual at that time of day, was unbearable. He decided to walk. The colonel had told him to be there at seven. He had time. He walked to Avenida Juárez, then turned left, toward El Caballito. He could go slow. He had time, His whole fucking life he’d had time. Killing isn’t a job that takes a lot of time, especially now that we’re doing it legally, for the government, by the book. During the Revolution, things were different, but I was just a kid then, an orderly to General Marchena, one of so many second-rate Generals. A lawyer in Saltillo said he was a small-fry, but that lawyer is dead. I don’t like jokes like that. I don’t mind a smutty story, but not jokes, you have to show respect, respect for Filiberto García, and respect for his generals. Fucking jokes!

This was the first time Bernal made the switch with the “but I was just a kid then . . .” and I was very confused and had to go back so see who “I” was. “Wait,” I said to myself. “There’s a narrator named Garcia and the main character’s name’s Garcia?” But after a while it becomes very natural, and the subtle transitions Bernal gives you between the two voices is very impressive. Like in this excerpt, in the transition made by “especially now that we’re doing it illegally . . . ,” the word “we’re” shows the seamlessness of the transitions. It adds a fresh element to the book.

Now, this is International Intrigue, so we’re talking espionage here: an American spy named Graves (haha, that’s where he puts people . . .), the Russian spy Laski, both of which speak perfect Spanish without an accent. They’re all following each other; the Russian on the American, vice-versa. When something happens to another spy, they all know about it. No one trusts each other. And then you have García, who doesn’t care about America’s problems, or Russia’s problems, or even Mexico’s problems really (though that’s a lie. He wouldn’t say he does, but he does), and certainly not International Intrigue, yet he does want to solve the caper. He wants to get it before the Russian does, and especially the American. He wants to be the best, even though he would never admit that. Does he want to do it for Mexico and their president? He would never admit to that either. He’s the kind of character you’d like to keep reading about. Which is why it’s too bad this was Bernal’s only book with him. It would be great to see what this García is really all about.

1  Clarence Worley, the protagonist in Tony Scott’s True Romance, says this to Alabama when they first meet in the movie theater in his description of Sonny Chiba.

—Blake Mycocksie, Founder of Toms Shoes

In response to world renowned economist Milton Friedman, who asserted that the only social responsibility of business is to increase profits, Mycoskie writes that “such thinking is out of date and out of gas.” In his recent book, Start Something That Matters, Mycoskie argues that building giving and/or CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) into your business plan isn’t only an ethical decision, it’s also a huge selling point for businesses. Among other things, it generates customer loyalty and an extremely positive brand image. From an internal perspective, CSR initiatives have been proven to significantly increase employee satisfaction and therefore retention, whether it is through corporate community involvement, or companies that support charitable causes. From the book, it appears that if a company has a strong CSR leaning, nothing can really go wrong. The ultimate idea is to create a for-profit company which makes enough money to sustain its ongoing operations, providing founders with a viable, profitable business that isn’t dependent on charity.

It is hard to finish this book without wanting to stop everything you are doing and dedicate the rest of your life to something that really matters, something that will let you “be the change that you want to see in the world.” It’s inspiring; it gives hope that any problem in the world can be solved through the creation of the right type of venture . . . you just have to go for it because Mycoskie makes sure that you understand that you owe it to humanity.

But how should you go about making the world a better place and transforming this brilliant idea you have into something concrete? This book will also give you good, yet sometime simplistic, advice on how to effectively start your business, particularly the type Toms is a pioneer for – for-profit-businesses based on a social cause, or simply a socially responsible organization. Mycoskie’s advice, although not always that original, is inspiring, moving, and a good lesson on leadership and trusting in your ideas. In addition to keeping it simple and overcoming your fears, the four other of the six guidelines Mycoskie describes as ones that “everyone needs to follow to start and sustain something that matters” are the following:

First, he insists on how important it is to tell your story. By telling us the success story of method, an environmental friendly soap brand, Mycoskie explains that what you are selling must be a story as much as it is a product.

“From their very first sale, they led with their story—the personal story of two guys worried about the toxicity of the products they cleaned with, and the professional story of a company that approached cleaning in an environmental friendly way. These stories allowed them to funnel excitement about the brand to consumers, who otherwise don’t spend that much time thinking about cleaners . . . method gave them a reason to make a previously thoughtless decision into a meaningful one.”

The reason for this, Mycoskie explains, is that “Conscious capitalism is about more than simply making money—although it is about that too. It’s about creating a successful business that also connects supporters to something that matters to them and that has great impact in the world. As consumers, customers will want your product for the typical reason—because it works better, because it’s fashionable, because the price is competitive, because it offers an innovation—but as supporters they also believe in what you’re doing; they bought into your story because it taps into something real, and they want to be part of it.” The book also insists that the power of our story isn’t  just a way to connect to your ultimate consumer but it also means making you attractive to potential partners (in Toms case to companies such as AT&T Vogue, Ralph Lauren etc.) who want to attach themselves to something deeper than buying and selling, even though giving is not part of their core competencies.

Second, Mycoskie explains that being open and forthright is even more important when your business has a philanthropic component because “being clear about where your donor’s money will go is the best way to build their trust.” Many people are hesitant to give to non-profits because they don’t know where or how their money is actually going to be used. For Toms success, building trust has meant two things. First, it has been to show customers that Toms is doing exactly the work Toms promises to do—give away a pair of shoes for each pair purchased. Toms has done that by taking some customers to Shoe Drops and special trips to visit their giving partners and learn more about their work. By taking customers and other interested parties and encouraging them to post pictures and videos of their experience online, Toms develops trust beyond that group—it extends to customers that don’t get to go and drop but stumble on videos or pictures online. Second, Mycoskie insists on how important it was to make it clear to customers, from the very beginning, that Toms is not like others in the social impact sector—it is a for-profit company. Its goal is to help people and make money doing it. “[We] have never hidden that from anyone and in so doing have paved the way for a new type of social venture.” Therefore, he concludes this lesson by saying that “building trust is not only a business strategy or even a nice thing to do. It is mission critical … The more you articulate where you are going and what you are doing, the more your employee, customers, and funders will feel they can be part of your goals, ensuring that they will trust the company’s vision.” And this is even more so the case in a socially responsible business.

With this piece of advice comes one issue that is not necessarily very well addressed in the book. What happens when you become so big that the company cannot itself directly carry out its social mission? In Toms’ case, the company has scaled up to the point that it cannot directly carry out its Shoe Drops anymore, and has to go through local humanitarian organizations to do so. Even though Mycoskie explains that these partnerships have made Toms’ global giving possible and more powerful, he does not tell us how the process is monitored. It is known that it is hard to control what non-profits do with the money given to them, which is why it would have been interesting to hear Mycoskie’s take on this.

Third, Mycoskie explains how important it is for start-ups and especially socially responsible start-ups to be resourceful without resources “ . . . being creative and resourceful are skills we honed in our hungry days, and they are just as useful now.  It’s an impulse that can lead to extraordinary success.” Showing investors that you can manage your money wisely can only be beneficial for the growth of your business. Also, by being open and transparent, as discussed earlier, it encourages you to be frugal and responsible with the money you take in. If people are aware of where their money goes, you’ll be less likely to spend it on a fancy office or high salaries.

Finally, Mycoskie insists that giving should never be an afterthought. “If it resonates with you, figure out how to responsibly make it part of what you are creating.” He does not give that much advice to businesses that do not have giving as part of their core competencies. Considering Mycoskie’s experience, it would have been interesting to hear him address how to strategically include giving in your existing business. He mentions partnerships with companies such as Toms but does not go further.