A Better Class of People

In an uncanny, distorted version of New York City, a man rides the subway through the chaos of an ordinary commute. He may have a gun in his pocket. He may be looking for someone—a woman named Esperanza.

Between stops, we shuttle back and forth through time and see a man who stands in traffic, the same man seizing and shuddering on a sidewalk, an institution where the man is housed with other undesirables, a neighborhood where all the residents have forgotten their names. Over everything looms the specter of a nameless menace, a pervasive sense that something—more than just a ride—is coming to an end. 

With Robert Lopez’s signature innovation, A Better Class of People delivers a network of stories interconnected and careening like subway tunnels through the realities of modern America: immigration, gun violence, police brutality, sexual harassment, climate change, and the point of fracture at which we find ourselves, where reality and perception are indistinguishable.

Praise and Reviews

"A peculiar, winning look at an American pysche on overdrive." — Publisher’s Weekly

"This is a book I wanted to revisit the moment I read its final word." — Kim Suhr, from review in Compulsive Reader

"Lopez takes a look inside, messy guts, beating heart and all. A rawly observed universe peopled with voices of stirring honesty and wild loop-de-loops. Funny, brutal, brilliant.” — Samantha Hunt, author of The Seas

"Robert Lopez is one of the most exciting writers working today and these linked stories are an excellent introduction to his blazingly original intelligence and wit." — Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

"Robert Lopez's A Better Class of People bowled me over. These stories are taut, intense, mysterious, and they echo off each other in totally unexpected ways -- and to boot -- the collection is an honest, funny, and brutal homage to New York City." — Peter Orner, author of Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live

“In A Better Class of People, Lopez's unhinged narrator is so chillingly realized that you can't help but feel the momentum of the subway rollicking through as you read it.” — Nicholas Rys, from an interview in The Nervous Breakdown

“The sound of the voice, like the electric currents of the subway, creates drama, intrigue, danger, and tension, and it pulls the reader through a strange dystopian world that is both fascinating and unforgettable.” — Ian Maloney, from review in Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“Simply put, Lopez is one of the most lyric and formally challenging writers in the U.S.” — Kristen Millares Young, from an interview in The Rumpus