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Friday Black Nana Kwame AdjeiBrenyah 9781328911247 Books

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Friday Black Nana Kwame AdjeiBrenyah 9781328911247 Books

Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s collection of short stories is stunning. Absolutely stunning. The first two—The Finkelstein 5 and The Era are chilling in their depiction of and resemblance to today’s society. There is a lovely vignette titled “Things My Mother Said” interspersed between but it is more aphorism than story. The Era imagines a dystopian future, while F5 is a slight exaggeration of today’s racist tropes and behavior (so slight as to be truly terrifying).

What is different about F5 is the response of Emmanuel and a band of enraged blacks that have finally had enough. Its rage and its righteousness cut to the quick. Both stories shine and resonate with a sparse prose embellished by tremendous passion and fury or the opposite—a zombie-like stasis induced by “The Good”. The Era freezes the soul with an indifference to the disenfranchised that is merely a tilt in the lens from the present day.

In both tales real emotion; true feeling and experience is continually repressed, denied, delayed until it simmers and then boils over with explosive consequence. In F5 the author calculates “blackness” on a scale of 1-10 in ways that are hilarious and heartbreaking. Every black person, especially men, must tamp it down to get by, though none can ever eliminate it entirely. The Hospital Where is a pitch-perfect immersion into the role of the story-teller and the fears and indignities inflicted upon the poor and the vulnerable. Dollops of magical realism remind the reader of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon--without the soaring souls.

Other stories are equally impressive; one or two, not so much. Lark Street, an imagining of a teenage girl’s aborting twin fetuses with the RU486 pill and her young boyfriend’s interaction with their unborn seemed contrived. For me though it was the exception. Zimmer Land is an interesting hybrid shining a harsh light on Florida's Stand Your Ground law and the violent obsession of men with gaming. It feels though more like an episode of Black Mirror than a short story but perhaps that's the point. The last story, Through The Flash is a hybrid like none I've ever seen--Groundhog Day meets Fight Club meets Mad Max. Terrifying but affirming.

Very few of these tales miss the mark by much, or at all. Most have that intrinsic quality found in all great literature—familiar and specific to a time and place (or people) but universal in themes and emotion. Friday Black is a great accomplishment; Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is an enormous talent. Highly recommended.


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Friday Black Nana Kwame AdjeiBrenyah 9781328911247 Books Reviews

When two of my favorite writers, Lynne Tillman and George Saunders, tout a book, when the book is compared in the NY Times to Ralph Ellison's, I have high expectations. Friday Black seems like one of the better manuscripts to come out of an MFA writing program. Exaggeration is not transformation. My disappointment helped me clarify what it is about the books I love that makes them singular.
Ok so there's dark and then pitch black. This dude gets downright grimy and grisley dark. Really well written post-apocalyptic fantasy uber realism that is hard to read and harder to put down. I admire the author's imagination and craftsmanship but I don't think I want to go for beers with him...
Wow. Each of these stories left me wanting more and more. I honestly feel like the author could write a novel and expand on each of these stories, and I'd devour every one.
The very first short story was scarily prophetic of where our society could be headed (no pun intended) if we continue on this long, winding path of hatred and racism. Even the first SENTENCE just hit me right in the chest.
Zimmer Land really messed me up emotionally; I literally had to put the book down and walk away for a bit after that one.
Friday Black was so thought provoking and had me reconsidering how much money and effort I put into purchasing useless *things* every holiday season.
Each of these stories could stand on their own, but together they're an amazing collection of page-turning writing that I really didn't want to end. I cannot wait to see what this author does next.
in Finklestein Five, the character emmanuel regulates his blackness on a scale from ten to one, ten being the black man perceived by white society as a threat, and one is the black man able to merge into mainstream society based on the disappearance of any trace of blackness in dress and diction. his scale is thrown off kilter when a white man armed with a chain saw cuts off the heads of five black children standing outside a library. his court defense, he felt threatened. this is one of a few themes explored by adjei-brenyah, based on ideas discussed by toni morrison, the creation of a fictional character absent of racial identifiers as she showed in her novel, Paradise, situating a white woman in a group of black women without telling the reader which character was the white woman. Finklestein Five is a story of how racial neutrality as a gauge for acceptance and safety is impossible.

in other stories, written as racial neutral, adjei-brenyah explores morrison’s idea closer. as he scrutinizes contemporary issues, one gets the impression the world is crazy enough without obsession of the racial other.

the issues of our times, teen suicide, racial hatred, the calloused superiority of retail workers controlling shoppers lusting for material goods with bargains and sales, and tales of life after the apocalypse, explored by adjei-brenyah are closer to the footsteps of colson whitehead than cormac mccarthy, though readers of mccarthy should not overlook adjei-brenyah’s stories.

the story Friday Black takes place in a big-box-store on black friday, the customers out for blood, literally, in their desire for one-time bargains. they grunt disconnected phrases about brand name products, a language not understood by many service workers, pressed to repel hordes of shopper zombies with sale items and deep cut bargains.

imagine that george saunders and peter straub at his most gory as nana kwame adjei-brenyah’s uncles.

when adjei-brenyan isn’t reveling in graphic violence he’s writing about mind numbing experiences of attending school within a dystopian system or working a low paying job, and questions what if these situations were forever.

there’s an intelligence at work here, not a pretty intelligence, but it’s here. nana kwame adjei-brenyah is the kind of writer you want to hear more from.
Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s collection of short stories is stunning. Absolutely stunning. The first two—The Finkelstein 5 and The Era are chilling in their depiction of and resemblance to today’s society. There is a lovely vignette titled “Things My Mother Said” interspersed between but it is more aphorism than story. The Era imagines a dystopian future, while F5 is a slight exaggeration of today’s racist tropes and behavior (so slight as to be truly terrifying).

What is different about F5 is the response of Emmanuel and a band of enraged blacks that have finally had enough. Its rage and its righteousness cut to the quick. Both stories shine and resonate with a sparse prose embellished by tremendous passion and fury or the opposite—a zombie-like stasis induced by “The Good”. The Era freezes the soul with an indifference to the disenfranchised that is merely a tilt in the lens from the present day.

In both tales real emotion; true feeling and experience is continually repressed, denied, delayed until it simmers and then boils over with explosive consequence. In F5 the author calculates “blackness” on a scale of 1-10 in ways that are hilarious and heartbreaking. Every black person, especially men, must tamp it down to get by, though none can ever eliminate it entirely. The Hospital Where is a pitch-perfect immersion into the role of the story-teller and the fears and indignities inflicted upon the poor and the vulnerable. Dollops of magical realism remind the reader of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon--without the soaring souls.

Other stories are equally impressive; one or two, not so much. Lark Street, an imagining of a teenage girl’s aborting twin fetuses with the RU486 pill and her young boyfriend’s interaction with their unborn seemed contrived. For me though it was the exception. Zimmer Land is an interesting hybrid shining a harsh light on Florida's Stand Your Ground law and the violent obsession of men with gaming. It feels though more like an episode of Black Mirror than a short story but perhaps that's the point. The last story, Through The Flash is a hybrid like none I've ever seen--Groundhog Day meets Fight Club meets Mad Max. Terrifying but affirming.

Very few of these tales miss the mark by much, or at all. Most have that intrinsic quality found in all great literature—familiar and specific to a time and place (or people) but universal in themes and emotion. Friday Black is a great accomplishment; Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is an enormous talent. Highly recommended.