Meet Alby, the heartbroken antihero at the center of Matt Sumell s ferocious, funny, and wrenching debut "Making Nice." Fueled by heartache, fury, and the occasional pain pill from his mother s leftover stash, Alby is flailing wildly as he tries (and mostly fails) to cope with his mother s death. From his hometown on the Great South Bay to a sailboat in a Los Angeles marina, he stalks the perimeters of calamity: he punches his sister; gets drunk; picks fights; and spews insults at children, slow drivers, old ladies, and every single surviving member of his family. But it s in the rare moments of connection training an abandoned bird up for combat, commiserating with a toddler in a breakfast joint, spoon-feeding his grandmother gelatinized milk that Alby begins to see a way to survive his pain. With unforgettable style and force and an ingenuous humanity that makes every page feel new ("The Guardian"), Matt Sumell s blistering debut blurs the line between fighting for and fighting with the only family you ve got."