The Uproar: A Novel

A “raw, tensely plotted, profound high-wire act of a book” (Téa Obreht) on the intricacies of marriage, class, and race, and just how far one man will go to protect his family—and himself.

Sharif is a good person. He knows that he is good because he’s aware of the privilege that he holds as a white man. He knows he is good because he chose to be a social worker at a nonprofit in Brooklyn, scraping by in New York City. And he knows he is good because his wife, Adjoua, a progressive Black novelist, has always said so.

But Sharif’s goodness doesn’t protect him and Adjoua against bad luck. In an emergency, when they must find a new home for Judy, their beloved, unruly, giant dog before the imminent birth of their immunocompromised daughter, a desperate Sharif leaves Judy in the care of Emmanuel, an undocumented Haitian immigrant Sharif met through his social services nonprofit.

When Emmanuel agrees to take the dog, it is only a momentary relief. What begins as a dispute between the young couple and Emmanuel's teenage son soon draws both families into a maelstrom of unpredictable conflict. As tempers flare into a public uproar, escalating to social media and being taken up by law enforcement, the cracks in Sharif and Adjoua’s marriage are exposed. The couple is forced to confront everything they thought they knew about race and empathy, while Sharif must question if he was ever good in the first place. Immersive and propulsive, The Uproar is the book we need to understand the moment we live in now.