Didn't Nobody Give A Sh*t About Carlotta by James Hannaham

I basically loved this book, not so much for the story it tells, which is very good, but for the voice of Carlotta Mercedes, the transgender Black Colombian star of this novel. Seriously, there’s no one quite like her, and she really inhabits the role and all that comes with it. We start in New York, 2015; Carlotta is out of prison after 20 years for armed assault, when a woman was shot and changed in big ways for life. A very serious crime. She tells her story in a hectic clamor, all street music, black vernacular, and convoluted sentences that interrupt themselves. When a book is as funny as this there’s a danger that the serious stuff gets swept away but beneath the chaos there is a plot. First there is a parole hearing which Carlotta scrapes through but everything that comes before pretty much convinces you that she has zero chance. Then we’re off on some routine activities than are anything but – family reunion, job application, car journey – they are only routine if you haven’t been locked up since 1993 and Carlotta brings that home loud and clear. She marvels that there is little wonder that “people used the same term for coming home from prison and coming back from outer space. Re-entry.”