The Fracking King

The Fracking King follows Winston Crwth—a boarding-school kid, loner, and Scrabble prodigy—who becomes an unlikely hero in the fight to stop fracking in Pennsylvania. Truth is a rare commodity in politics, and the idea of “winning” a debate as cleanly and simply as you’d win a Scrabble game can seem impossible. But with the truth on his side, a jar of toxic “frackwater,” and the belief that he can win a Scrabble tournament whose first prize is a meeting with the governor, Winston creates a moment of devastating truth for her and for the people who want to frack the state.

For all its thoughtful environmental concerns, The Fracking King is also a hopeful book about the power of believing in yourself and pursuing your own particular genius. Winston’s Scrabble prowess has its freakish side, but it also makes him genuinely heroic, and his lexical predicaments are funny, shocking, dirty, and sometimes mind-boggling. This is the rare, satisfying debut that’s as playful as it is profound.