By Joshua Furst
253 pages; Knopf

She tracks her runaway daughter with a passion born of desperation. Julia, a suburban Minneapolis housewife who came of age in a miasma of punk fury, sees teenage Cheryl following the same violent, tormented path, thinks she knows Cheryl's every nihilistic turn on the city's ruthless streets, yet is helpless to save her. The Sabotage Cafè (Knopf) shows debut novelist Joshua Furst (Short People) in full control of his psychologically complex material, with a tale of "emotional bondage" as chilling as it is heartbreakingly real.

— Cathleen Medwick