Last Night in Brooklyn

How does Alicia’s position as both a community insider and a class outsider affect her reliability as the story’s narrator?

Is Alicia’s final act of vandalism one of meaningful political protest or a gesture of ultimately futile rage? Explain your answer.

What does Gonzalez gain by framing the vivid summer of 2007 within the retrospective grief of a community already dismantled by 2010?

Alicia and La Garza simultaneously mourn the erasure of their neighborhood while participating in its commodification for their own ambitions. Does this affect their moral positioning as protagonists? Why or why not?

How does the novel portray the possibilities and limitations of grassroots activism against gentrification?

Beyond their rivalry for Devon, what are the survival strategies and class aspirations that Marla Forten and La Garza share? How does this speak to the novel’s larger examination of class aspiration and upward mobility?

Comment on the novel’s proverb “the monkey knows the tree it climbs” (3). Does it adequately explain La Garza’s tragedy? Why or why not?

How does the novel define the pursuit of authentic selfhood? Is authenticity still possible in the late-stage capitalism of 21st century New York? Explain your answer.