Talented Ribkins

2016 winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award and riffing off W.E.B. Du Bois' famous essay, this marvelously inventive novel tells the story of Johnny Ribkins, a 72-year old African-American antiques dealer from Florida who was born with a unique talent.

At 72, Johnny Ribkins shouldn't have such problems: He's got one week to come up with the money he stole from his mobster boss or it's curtains.

Luckily, Johnny comes from an African-American family that has super powers. Well… sort of super powers. His father, for example, could see in the dark. His brother could scale walls. His cousin spits fire, and Johnny himself can make precise maps of any space you name, whether he's been there or not. 

In the old days, the Ribkins tried to apply their gifts to the civil rights effort. But disappointed at how that turned out, Johnny and his brother used their talents to stage a series of daring cat-burglar robberies. After his brother died of a drug overdose, though, Johnny blamed himself, and stashed their money in hiding spots all over Florida and tried to forget it. 

In need of that money decades later, with his boss's goons tailing him, Johnny drives to his brother's old place to dig up his first stash and makes a remarkable discovery - his brother's widow has found the money and spent it. What's more, Johnny's brother had a daughter he didn't know about. Her gift? She can catch cans if you throw them at her head. No matter how many, no matter how fast. 

The old man and the teenaged girl become an unlikely duo as Johnny is chased by his bosses goons from stash to stash across Florida, in what is, in more ways than one, a hilarious and moving race against time, in one of the most inventive and original debuts ever.