I have a review of Ryan Andrews’ novel The Birth of Prudence up at Taki’s Magazine.

Mark, the protagonist of the novel’s narrative part, is thoughtful and bookish, or at any rate not un-bookish, in spite of having no college education. He is subject to “periodic fits of intellectual agitation”; but until Prudence enters his life he has no idea how to organize those fits in any one direction.

Prudence is Korean by blood, but not otherwise. Her tastes are all Western: concert music (she plays the piano), Shakespeare, ancient Greece. She is something of an improver, and draws Mark into her interests. They read Euripides together “with fury and passion” and visit art galleries. All this has the unintended effect of awakening Mark to his racial identity.