Good Girl: A Novel

An exhilarating debut novel (R.O. Kwon, The New York Times Book Review) about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of selfdiscoverya portrait of the artist as a young woman set in a Berlin that cant escape its historyA girl can get in almost anywhere, even if she cant get out.SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMENS PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE EDMUND WHITE AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION AND THE VERMONT BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD AND THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE A BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Elle, Electric Lit, The SkinnyA nobullsh*t, mustread debut.Kaveh AkbarKaleidoscopic, full of style and soul.Raven LeilaniAber writes with . . . masterful precision.Leila Lalami, The AtlanticOnce in a blue moon a debut novel comes along, announcing a voice quite unlike any other, with a layered story and sentences that crackle and pop, begging to be read aloud. Aria Abers splendid Good Girl introduces just such a voice . . . Aber, an awardwinning poet, strikes gold here, much like Kaveh Akbar did in last years acclaimed Martyr!Los Angeles TimesIn Berlins artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteenyearold Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist.Then in the haze of Berlins legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowes controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germanyand Nilas family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.