The Confession of Copeland Cane

WINNER OF THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION“A significant new voice in fiction, Norris has written what may be one of the defining novels of the era...” —BuzzFeed

One of Publishers Weekly''s Best Novels of the Summer ∙ One of The Millions'' Most Anticipated Books of June ∙ One of ALTA''s Recommended Reads for June ∙ One of BuzzFeed''s Amazing Small Press Books To Add To Your Summer Reading List


Copeland Cane V, the child who fell outta Colored People Time and into America, is a fugitive…

He is also just a regular teenager coming up in a terrifying world. A slightly eccentric, flip-phone loving kid with analog tendencies and a sideline hustling sneakers, the boundaries of Copeland’s life are demarcated from the jump by urban toxicity, an educational apparatus with confounding intentions, and a police state that has merged with media conglomerates—the highly-rated Insurgency Alert Desk that surveils and harasses his neighborhood in the name of anti-terrorism.


Recruited by the nearby private school even as he and his folks face eviction, Copeland is doing his damnedest to do right by himself, for himself. And yet the forces at play entrap him in a reality that chews up his past and obscures his future. Copeland’s wry awareness of the absurd keeps life passable, as do his friends and their surprising array of survival skills. And yet in the aftermath of a protest rally against police violence, everything changes, and Copeland finds himself caught in the flood of history.


Set in East Oakland, California in a very near future, The Confession of Copeland Cane introduces us to a prescient and contemporary voice, one whose take on coming of age in America becomes a startling reflection of our present moment.