Good Kings Bad Kings

March 25, 2013
Playwright Nussbaumâs debut novelâthe 2012 winner of Barbara Kingsolverâs PEN/Bellwether Prizeâtakes readers behind the scenes at a facility for disabled teens. Woven from short individual chapters in first-person narrative, at first it reads like a series of darkly funny, often frightening character sketches. As the book progresses, however, the darker side of the facilityâs management and desire for profit emerges. From Yessenia (transferred from Juvie), to Mia (keeping a horrifying secret), to Ricky and Joanne (devoted and determined to make a positive difference), to Michelle (working for the management company and slowly growing aware of what her job entails), these individuals are complicated, funny, heartbreaking, and inspiring. How they are pushed beyond breaking points and emerge into the wider world is captivating. Nussbaumâs obvious gifts as a playwright make this read more like a performance piece than a novel. Some of the cadence and vernacular choices can distract, as can the use of the present tense, but the book offers insight into the lives of those hidden away from the public, and it will have readers questioning âthe systemâsâ choices and the publicâs complacency. This is a stirring debut from a determined writer and activist.

July 1, 2013

Winner of the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, playwright Nussbaum's debut novel opens with tenth-grader Yessenia Lopez narrating from the "punishment room" at the Illinois Learning and Life Skills Center (ILLC), a state-run nursing facility for adolescents with disabilities. Joanne Madsen, disabled by an accident, works as a data-entry clerk at the center and provides insight about the conditions she finds. Readers meet other residents and employees in short, first-person pieces as their struggles and dramas intersect; ties among the characters are deepened by Yessenia's friendship with certified nursing assistant Jimmie Kendrick and Joanne's growing romantic relationship with Ricky Hernandez, the center's driver. Meanwhile, Michelle Volkmann, recruiter for the corporate parent company, trolls area hospitals and events for bodies to fill beds and turn profits, even as patient neglect and penny-pinching threaten the well-being of all associated with ILLC. VERDICT A compelling and authentic vision of life in facilities for the disabled, told with humor and immediacy, this work will appeal to the many fans of Dave Pelzer's memoir, A Child Called It. Fans of Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, and Julia Alvarez, as well as mature young adults, will appreciate the journey of these strong young people.--Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2013
Playwright/activist Nussbaum makes her fiction debut with a scathing look at life inside an institution for disabled juveniles. Located next to the old Chicago stockyards, the Illinois Learning and Life Skills Center is hardly as nurturing as its name suggests. Formerly state-run, ILLC is now operated by a private company whose main interest is in maximizing profits; while Whitney-Palm cuts costs and corners, ILLC's doctors get kickbacks for ordering millions of dollars in unnecessary tests for their patients. One of the "houseparents" is sexually abusing a terrified incest survivor; one of the guards is a brutal bully who eventually breaks a boy's jaw. Even the well-meaning employees are so exhausted and overstretched due to staff cuts that one wheelchair-bound kid dies of third-degree burns from a scalding shower when left unsupervised. Nussbaum unfolds her story in a polyphonic narrative whose colorful individual voices somewhat mitigate the parade of grim particulars. Tough yet vulnerable Yessenia is a particularly engaging narrator among the residents, and gentle, caring guard Ricky has a touching romance with Joanne, a disabled activist who does clerical work at ILLC and serves as the novel's political conscience. Nussbaum doesn't deal in shades of gray: Whitney-Palm donates big bucks to Republicans and Democrats alike to make sure its misdeeds go unpunished, and odious VP Tim denies workers raises while enjoying his sailboat and house in Florida. Since the author herself works with disabled teens, these all-black villains may well be based on fact, but they make for slightly schematic fiction. Nonetheless, Nussbaum's vivid portraits of a wide variety of ILLC residents, some of whom are mentally ill as well as physically challenged, reveal the three-dimensional humanity of people the rest of society is all too willing to neglect and ignore. Well-meaning, well-written and well-plotted, with qualified justice for some of the bad guys and hope for a few of the oppressed: A most appropriate winner of the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.

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Starred review from April 15, 2013
This year's winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction is a mighty first novel by a Chicago playwright and disabilities-rights activist. Nussbaum's dramatist skills translate powerfully into fiction as she gives voice to an infatuating cast of characters assembled in the Illinois Learning and Life Skills Center, a nursing home for young people with physical and mental challenges. Yessina Lopez is an assertive and giving teen whose wheelchair does not inhibit her quest for autonomy and love. There is courtly romance between Teddy Dobbs, the only resident whose father visits, and sweet and severely abused cerebral palsy sufferer M-a Ov-edo. Smart and wittily sarcastic Joanne Madsen, who uses a wheelchair with aplomb ever since being hit by a city bus, is the center's new data-entry clerk, and she becomes sharply attuned to the tender hearts of the kids and the indifference, even malevolence, of the administrators. The center's bus driver, Ricky Hernandez, also cares passionately for his young charges and worries about their treatment. Nussbaum charms, outrages, and enlightens readers as she cycles among these and other characters, boldly contrasting the transcendence of love with the harsh realities of a negligent for-profit nursing home. This is unquestionably an authentic, galvanizing, and righteous novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)