They were lying about the weight. Flip worked at the New York Racing Association, and he heard: Fredo here, Maximiliano there, five pounds here, even ten there. They were heavier than their declared weights. And if you knew the real numbers the jockeys were weighing in at, you knew the lighter. The honest jockey had a better chance at winning. Better than better. Flip had been watching all summer from opening day up to the Travers, and he’d been right on the money every time . . .
There was a murdered corpse found across the street from us, on the top floor of the vacant house at the end of the block, across the alley from the KFC. The house is no longer vacant. It has been renovated and new tenants have moved into the apartment where the body was found. There are only a couple of vacant houses left in the row now, and all of the units on our side of the street are full; I see the windows lit up like eyes in the masonry on my way home at night. The neighborhood is changing . . .
To celebrate the release of Go de Rass to Sleep, the new Jamaican patois translation of the bestselling Go the F*** to Sleep, Johnny Temple spoke with author Adam Mansbach and translator Kellie Magnus about translation, Jamaican culture, censorship, and more.
“That boy Carlson is a liar and a rogue,” I tell my daughter Eve on a Saturday night, as she primps to leave for a house party in Brooklyn. “I wouldn’t go near that boy with a ten-foot pole . . .”
It’s three in the morning, the orange sulfur lamps bleach the black sky, and for a moment I think it’s the sun rising over the skyline, but then the darkness recedes back into my vision. It’s always night here; this place never sleeps . . .
Akashic Books has partnered with three influential independent publishers—Grove Atlantic, Melville House, and Europa Editions—for a month-long initiative featuring acclaimed crime fiction authors, editors, critics, and publishers appearing together in a series of readings, panels, and discussions!
