Go Home, Ricky!

Starred review from August 23, 2021
Kwak’s acerbic and hilarious hyper-masculine debut picaresque follows the adventures of Ricky Twohatchet, born Richard Powell, a semi-professional wrestler who’s searching for his father. Once a rising star, Ricky watches as his career falls apart after a debilitating neck injury at the age of 25 during a match gone wrong, a fall further cemented by an out-of-context viral video of him screaming “Fuck you, America!” His life in Omaha, Nebr., continues to crumble thanks to a dispute with his pregnant lover over an abortion that leads to an abrupt breakup. Left without much purpose, Ricky decides to search for Jeremiah Twohatchet, the man who courted his mother and then abandoned her before he was born. Kwak manages to enamor the reader with a protagonist whose Reagan-era machismo would likely turn off an audience of the social media age; so much of the hilarity ensues from his brusque skewering of modern millennial culture. (“Fuck QR codes,” he pithily says at one point.) As a prose stylist, Kwak is impeccable. Every sentence is explosive, energetic, confident and hyper-polished, as if meant to be shouted proudly in a stadium of thousands. Readers might be surprised to find, in Ricky Twohatchet, an enduring voice. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management.

September 15, 2021
How can you cope when most everything that defines your identity is lost? That is the question that Richard Powell must answer in Kwak's coming-of-age debut novel. Ricky Twohatchet, as he is known on the Omaha amateur-wrestling circuit, is on the brink of fame until an injury at the hands of Johnny America and the unfortunate viral video of Ricky screaming, "fuck you, America" in the aftermath sideline him permanently. Then his girlfriend dumps him. At least he isn't a fraud; he really is half Native American, even if he looks white and has never met his mythologized (by his mother) father. But things spiral even more out of control when he and his mom set out on a road trip to find his dad. Ricky is a hothead and a self-saboteur supreme, yet his earnestness and humor make him endearing, and Kwak's unconventional and sharp writing further draws readers in. Go Home, Ricky! explores race, class, and identity in subtle yet fascinating ways and is an extremely promising first novel from a distinct voice.

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