In a stunning debut novel, Michael B. Jones manages to marry a gripping psychological adventure to a serious exploration of human emotion and America during the Reagan and elder Bush years. In watching the decline of his alcoholic, sociopath ex-Marine father Wayne, Charles Reed witnesses the moral decline of America from 1986 to 1993. Jones thus delivers a meditation on the effect of growing up during the “greed is good” era as much as on dysfunctional families and alcohol and painkiller abuse.

The reader knows that Wayne and Charles on are a hellbound train before you get through the first two short chapters, but finding out how it plays out and, more importantly, why become as consuming as Wayne’s cravings for alcohol. Jones writes crisply with exceptional insight into and empathy for the failed workings of Wayne’s mind.

Comparisons to The Great Santani prove easy, but After the Race is a different book with a far more entertaining narrative and a young man as morally complex and confused as Holden Caulfield.