The Man in My Basement

Book excerpt: Charles Blakey is a young black man whose life is slowly crumbling. His parents are dead, he can't find a job, he drinks too much, and his friends have begun to desert him. Worst of all, he's fallen behind on the mortgage payments for the beautiful home that's belonged to his family for generations. When a stranger - a white man - offers him $50,000 in cash to rent out his basement for the summer, Charles needs the money too badly to say no. He knows that the stranger must want something more than a basement view. Sure enough, he has a very particular - and bizarre - set of requirements, and Charles tries to satisfy him without getting lured into the strangeness. But he sees an opportunity to understand the secrets of the white world, and his summer with a man in his basement turns into a dark game of power and manipulation.