A gritty urban drama about the many--and sometimes torturous--forms of redemption Summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a blue collar dockside community where the East River opens into the bay. The nice streets are the streets that have trees. The bar called the Dockyard is not trying to be ironic. June and Val, two fifteen-year-old girls, head out onto the bay one night on a hot pink inflatable raft, beckoned by the skyline of Manhattan. Only Val makes it back to land, washed ashore semi-conscious in the weeds. What exactly happened to June that night has reverberations for everyone in Red Hook: Fadi, the Lebanese bodega owner; Cree, a teenager whose father was murdered; and Jonathan, an alcoholic music teacher drawn to Val. As in the work of Richard Price and Zadie Smith, the physical and emotional landscape of the setting is indelible. Ivy Pochoda has a gift for conveying those arresting details that beautifully capture a neighbourhood, a night or a city with a few bold strokes. And then she draws us into a compelling story, a page-turner in the best sense: not only do we need to know what happens to the girls, but we need to know these characters better, where they come from and where they're heading. A novel about seizing the chance to escape--even at great risk--Visitation Street is a gripping and absorbing read.