I Am Alfonso Jones

Alfonso Jones is preparing to play Hamlet in his school’s hip-hop version of Shakespeare’s play and wants to tell his friend Danetta how he feels. While shopping for his first suit, he is shot by an off-duty police officer who mistakes a clothes hanger for a gun. After his death, Alfonso is among ghosts riding a subway and watching the people left behind. The novel moves between this present and Alfonso’s earlier life, including his family’s experience with his father’s wrongful imprisonment and exoneration.