Night Work »

Nelson George is an award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction. He has written for Playboy, Billboard, Esquire, the Village Voice, Essence, and many other national magazines, as well as writing and producing television programs and feature films.

Dark-skinned chocolate, sexy and smooth, Night earns his keep by pleasuring rich white women around New York City. But he's grown weary of this seedy, criminal life. If he could just get someone to sign him to a record deal, he'd willingly say good-bye forever to the emotionless sex that is slowly numbing his soul.

Just when his dream of becoming an R&B vocalist is about to be realized, Beth Ann, a beautiful supermodel deep in debt to a dangerous drug ring, begs Night to help her move a large quantity of Ecstasy. He reluctantly agrees, but the good deed sinks him deeper into the nightlife he's been trying so desperately to escape. It also puts him on the radar of the NYPD, and when one of Night's clients is found murdered the cops are quick to add it all up against him. Now Night must fight the fallout of his past and try to forge a path back to his future, before it takes off without him.

A stunning portrait of the unholy intersection of New York's sexual underground and the entertainment business, this gripping novel will appeal to fans of Chester Himes, Donald Goines, and other noir masters.

Publishers Weekly

Best known for his nonfiction (Hip Hop America and The Death of Rhythm and Blues were both nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award), George is also a talented novelist (One Woman Short, etc.). In his fifth novel, he chronicles the tenuous dreams of Night, a male gigolo who is rapidly tiring of his sordid life. Night's clients are an intriguing mix of wanton playmates, including the white widow of a dead civil rights leader, a sexually frustrated society matron (she's sure her husband is "doing a Congressman Condit with someone in the nation's capital") who likes her action rough, a guy with a penchant for threesomes and a couple who like to romp while wearing masks depicting the faces of noted jazz figures. The money's good, but Night no longer wants to be "a walking, dick-swinging stereotype, the kind of black image the civil rights movement had to overcome." He's pursuing his dream of an R&B singing career in his off-hours, but his ambitions are restricted by haunting memories of what may have been sexual abuse, an ailing younger sister and above all his friend Beth Ann, a needy supermodel with ties to a violent Israeli ecstasy-peddling ring. When one of Night's clients is murdered, police peg him for the killing, further diminishing his chances of going straight. Billed as a noir thriller in the tradition of Chester Himes and Donald Goines, George's novel falls short of the raw power of their work, but it does offer biting wit and intelligent commentary on youth culture, the sexual underground and the entertainment world. Despite substantial weaknesses in the contrived, pulpy plot, George has a flair for keeping readers amused and entertained. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.