IN THE LIGHT OF YOU
June 2008 | 240 pages | $14.95
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Angry 16 year old misfit Mikal Fanon has just joined a gang of Neo-Nazi skinheads for reasons that are not entirely clear to him. He is taken in by the leader of the gang, Richard, and the two become fast (and best) friends. Emboldened by his new-found sense of belonging Mikal finds himself committing horrible acts of violence without a second thought. But two women threaten to tear his world apart—a gorgeous and passionate young Black activist on campus named Niani Shange, to whom Mikal finds himself hopelessly attracted, and Sherry Nicolas, Richard's new girlfriend who seems to be driving a wedge between the two young skinheads . . .

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praise for In the Light of You

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"Late in this raw, blistering coming-of-age novel set in an unnamed Ohio city, Mikal Fanon observes that most 16- to 17-year-olds try lots of roles, discard most and move on, but I happened to have worn a costume with consequences. The costume that the rootless teen tries on is a violently right-wing group, the Fifth Reich, led by the charismatic Richard Lovecraft. Mikal learns to spout the slogans, gets the de rigueur tats (i.e., tattoos) and stomps whatever poor victims the group despises. Singer (Chasing the Wolf) evokes with rare passion the tumultuous confusions and conflicts as teens seek to work out their racial and sexual identities. Though other major characters, like a beautiful black girl, Niani Shange, who alternately attracts and repels Mikal, aren't sufficiently fleshed out, readers will find Mikal's erratic passage through a rough adolescence both vivid and compelling."
—Publisher's Weekly

"In furiously fast-paced prose, Singer gives voice to 16-year-old loner Mikal Fanon and his infatuation with the white power movement. A family move lands Mikal in a high school riven by racial conflict, where he finds himself friendless and the target of black-on-white violence. Then he meets the charismatic Richard Lovecraft, leader of a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads, and the feeling of being a part of a group gives Mikal an unprecedented sense of empowerment. Soon he is avidly participating in a horrific series of assaults on gays, blacks, and other minorities, until the evening the skinheads take on a group even more ruthless than their own. Singer vivifies the attraction of the white power movement, drawing both the long, boring stretches spent playing video games and the heated moments of violence, set against a backdrop of sex and metal music. Mikal’s ultimate moment of redemption is not drawn with the same convincing detail, but by then, Singer’s percussive prose will have worked its magic. An unblinking portrait of young white rage."
—Booklist

"With prose brutal as a tumble through barbed wire...A riveting story of hatred, fear, longing, and maybe,...redemption."
—Marcus Sakey, author of At the City's Edge

"...one of the finest coming-of-age novels published so far this century..."
—John Connolly, author of The Book of Lost Things

"The world Singer creates is seamlessly authentic, and Mikal is the kind of complicated, flawed, and completely compelling character that very few writers could pull off. Singer’s prose is as stark and brutal as the world he describes, but it’s also riveting. "
—Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike