SEEN

A Black teenager is wrongfully accused of murder in Delegal’s novel.

Fifteen-year-old Jason Royals is given a rare opportunity by his mother—the chance to skip church on Sunday to prepare for a job interview at a local Beau Rêve, Florida, pharmacy with his new crush, Kim. Dressed in nice khakis and with an added spring in his step from his air-bounce sneakers, Jason rushes across the street to beat traffic only to be stopped and forcibly arrested for “running while Black.” He shortly finds himself in the custody of John Marshall, a 10-year veteran of the police force anxious to end his tenure in homicide. Pressured by his role as an “upstanding” Black man, haunted by too much violence committed by too many young offenders, Marshall has no trouble believing that the high school student before him is a murderer. Worse, after a threatening trip into the woods with Marshall and his white partner, the traumatized Jason confesses to the crime. His only hope in a system stacked against him is that his attorney, Aaron Hampton, known as a “fierce advocate,” can get his confession dismissed and ensure that his time in jail only means a future delayed, not one denied. This timely novel is a vivid panic attack on the page, a fictional account of the real-life horror story too many young Black men face every day. Inspired by an actual crime in Jacksonville, Jason’s plight illustrates how rushed, abusive police work and racism override justice at every turn. Correcting such mistakes is a long, frustrating process, and the book places readers right there, in the cell and courtroom alongside its protagonist, to struggle with him and feel his anger, hopelessness, and sorely tested faith. The narrative excels at empathy and doesn’t only reserve it for Jason; Marshall isn’t portrayed as some stock serial villain, just another flawed character in an even more flawed system.

A crushingly relevant story that puts its readers in the shoes of the accused.