Night of the Short Eyes

"California is on fire. Everyone has the virus. Sinister patrols of SWAT teams seem to materialize out of thin air, and if you're not careful, you'll end up exiled down in Bakersfield. In the middle of it all, the fourteen-year-old narrator in Night of the Short Eyes must take care of his mess of a family--Dad is in jail for stealing guns with his partner, Ronnie, and Mom is shacking up with the social worker assigned to the family's case--and he only has one thing to his advantage: he speaks perfect English. Refugees from Russia stream into San Francisco as our narrator approaches his next birthday. His younger brother (nicknamed Putin, "on account of his broken English and heavy accent.") seems determined to make trouble if he cannot find it himself. Which shouldn't be hard when even crossing the street is a walk on the dangerous side. In this world of worsening climate disasters, and set against the backdrop of a cold war that never ended, Night of the Short Eyes may be former San Francisco Literary Laureate Peter Plate's most outrageous novel yet. Written with lyrical grace and propulsive momentum, Plate's latest vision of California is so warped that it just might come to pass"--