Spanning four years at the University of Chicago, this electrifying debut novel follows a group of friends who are drawn into a high-stakes campus game run by a mysterious secret society—only to find themselves the unwitting architects of a shocking tragedyLet the games begin…It’s the fall of 2013. Barack Obama is president, the University of Chicago has launched its pilot Scholars of Color program, and Darwin Harrington—a physics geek determined to have a glow up so major that maybe, just maybe, he’ll find a girlfriend—is on his way to orientation. Soon, he’ll meet the friends who will split and rearrange the atomic bonds of his life: Nat Summers, an aspiring writer who can’t quite summon “that college feeling” until she begins orbiting a wildly successful visiting lecturer; Stephanie Montgomery, the campus It Girl who believes that relentless overachieving will distract her from a dark secret; and Jordan St. James, the golden boy of the program and basketball all-star who is increasingly burdened by the weight of expectations.
In Darwin’s dogged quest to improve his social standing, he becomes fixated on joining the most notorious and nerdiest secret society at school, which revolves around an elaborate ritual called Scav, a scavenger hunt that promises certain participants a fast-track ticket to society’s most elite circles. By fourth year, his obsession drags his friends into the hunt, each of whom have different reasons for joining—Nat, for the plot, Stephanie, for the institutional rewards, and Jordan, to find redemption. One of them won’t live to see graduation.
Provocative, tender, and laugh-out-loud funny,
This Is an Actual Tragedy is both a sly satire of the campus novel and a searing coming-of-age story—a bold offering from a brilliant new voice in American fiction that asks necessary questions about the cost of entry to the ivory tower of higher education. Who gets to play the game? And who suffers the consequences when the game inevitably goes awry?
In this astonishing debut novel, four unlikely friends meet at the University of Chicago’s “Scholars of Color” program and form an unbreakable bond—until they’re drawn into a dangerous campus game that ends in catastrophe.
“Brimming with humor… Wildly inventive… Nothing short of virtuosic. It cracks the campus novel wide open, burns it down.”
—Tommy Orange, New York Times bestselling author of There, There and Wandering Stars
It’s the fall of 2013, and Darwin Harrington—a physics geek determined to level up his life—is on his way to orientation. Soon, he’ll meet the friends who will split and rearrange the atomic bonds of his existence. There’s Nat: an adrift, aspiring writer, who enters an illicit romance that’s all fun and games until it isn’t. Stephanie: the campus It Girl who’s guarding a secret that threatens to shatter her carefully-crafted sense of self. And Jordan: the golden boy, a six-foot-four basketball star who’s earned the nickname “Young Barack,” but struggles beneath the weight of expectations.
When Darwin receives an invitation to participate in the most notorious and nerdy secret society at school, revolving around an elaborate tradition called Scav—an unhinged scavenger hunt that requires students to perform absurd, often illegal, stunts—Nat, Stephanie, and Jordan roll their eyes. But over the next four years, as they navigate the widening gap between who they feel they really are versus how others perceive them, each of them will join the hunt for different reasons. One won’t live to see graduation.
Provocative, profound, and deeply, darkly funny, this marks the explosive arrival of a brilliant new voice in contemporary fiction, about the perils of trying to find yourself in a world that’s lost its way. Both a razor-sharp satire of college life and a sweeping coming-of-age story, This Is an Actual Tragedy asks: Who gets to play the game? And who suffers the consequences when the game goes awry?
