“You wanted to write a more muscular book,” Akbar says, placing a hand on Orange’s shoulder, “until you remembered that the heart, too, is a muscle.”
It’s day three of the tour, and they’re sitting in the car outside Sacramento’s Underground Books, launched in the early 2000s by a nonprofit founded by ex-NBA player Kevin Johnson, who sought to open the store following the closure of the neighborhood’s only library.
“We talked about…