A. K.’s wondrous and shattering debut collection imbues people on the periphery with power hardly visible to outsiders—where no one conforms to type. In the title story, to leave a seemingly friendly and supportive church, a family must risk everything.  

 

In “The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez),” children find a winged boy in a seaside village in Tobago. In “Ready for the Revolution?” uncertain lovers play rough with identity politics, and are set on an unexpected path. In “Drink the Dew,” love and wrath become one, while the young woman in “Inside,” navigates a complicated business arrangement with her lover.

 

In “Love,” a scandalous affair produces a love child, born with a dark omen, while in “Exile,” a pregnant teen from a staunchly religious family, is exiled to have her baby in secret. A gardener in “Love Story No. 8,” falls for a rich man’s daughter to disastrous ends. The Believers is at once poignant and subversive, utterly haunting and unforgettable.