“Ride Around Shining lays claim to being an interesting novel on its own terms, offering some fresh takes on those big American topics of race, class, manhood and meritocracy…a rousing affirmation of American possibility.” — Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air with Terry Gross
“Many a white guy has felt that the answers to his lameass and goofy existence might be found in making his life ‘blacker.’ Chris Leslie-Hynan’s brilliant debut is the story of one such paleface on the loose.” — Will Blythe, author of To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever
“Ride Around Shining is a West Coast, twenty-first-century Gatsby, warped through the lenses of race and class, and similarly obsessed with those very American anxieties of money, ambition and authenticity. This is the best and one of the bravest novels I’ve read in years.” — Benjamin Hale, author of The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore
“R.A.S. is brilliant. Sure, it’s about ballers and their chauffeurs, and fame and wealth and celebrity and race. But its subversive soul is interested only in one thing: the hunger, both yours and mine, to swallow the world whole. It feels like an instant classic.” — Joshua Ferris, author of To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
“Ride Around Shining is a searing debut—simultaneously poignant and provocative, tender and deeply unnerving. With mordant wit and exquisite sensitivity, Chris Leslie-Hynan illuminates the overlapping fault lines of race and class, aspiration and invention, borrowed nostalgia and dubious desire.” — Jennifer duBois, author of Cartwheel
“It’s hard to believe Ride Around Shining exists…it’s a provocative, bracing, and totally singular look at how white entitlement can fester in the face of black accomplishment.” — Portland Mercury
“A smart, sad, funny, beautifully voiced, and precisely detailed investigation of the particularly American collision of race, sex, money, and vicariousness.” — David Shields, author of Black Planet