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An elegant, insistent narrative of actions taken and not taken.
What does it mean to take action? To bear witness? What does it cost?
In these ten stories, each set in the changing landscapes of contemporary New York City, a range of characters--from children to grandmothers to ghosts--live through the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action. Though they strive to connect, to remember, to stand up for, and to really see each other, they often fall short, and the structures they build around these ambitions and failures shape not only their own futures but the legacies and prospects of their families and their city.
In its portraits of families and friendships lost and found, the paradox of intimacy, the long shadow of grief, the meaning of home, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in just a few generations, where strangers might sometimes show kindness while those we trust--doctors, employers, siblings--too often turn away, where joy comes in snatches: flowers on a windowsill, dancing in the street, glimpsing your purpose, change on the horizon.
With prose as upendingly beautiful as it is artfully, seamlessly crafted, Jamel Brinkley offers nothing less than the full scope of life and death and change in the great, unending drama of the city.
What does it mean to take action? To bear witness? What does it cost?
In these ten stories, each set in the changing landscapes of contemporary New York City, a range of characters--from children to grandmothers to ghosts--live through the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action. Though they strive to connect, to remember, to stand up for, and to really see each other, they often fall short, and the structures they build around these ambitions and failures shape not only their own futures but the legacies and prospects of their families and their city.
In its portraits of families and friendships lost and found, the paradox of intimacy, the long shadow of grief, the meaning of home, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in just a few generations, where strangers might sometimes show kindness while those we trust--doctors, employers, siblings--too often turn away, where joy comes in snatches: flowers on a windowsill, dancing in the street, glimpsing your purpose, change on the horizon.
With prose as upendingly beautiful as it is artfully, seamlessly crafted, Jamel Brinkley offers nothing less than the full scope of life and death and change in the great, unending drama of the city.
204 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2023
269 people are currently reading
13978 people want to read
About the author
Jamel Brinkley
12 books212 followersJamel Brinkley was raised in Brooklyn and the Bronx, New York. He is a Kimbilio Fellow and is an alum of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He has been awarded scholarships from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. A recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he was also the 2016-17 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in A Public Space and Gulf Coast, and his debut short story collection will be published in 2018 by Graywolf Press. He is currently at work on a novel, Night is One Long Everlasting.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 258 reviews
September 13, 2023
Brinkley is a masterful short story writer. Each of these stories is a whole world unto itself. The brilliant way he tells stories of Black communities and Black families in times of both feast and famine is matched by beautiful writing on a sentence level. This is an engaging and deeply satisfying collection.
December 27, 2023
Only someone with an insider's knowledge of contemporary New York life could have written these stories. Jamel Brinkley, award winning writer who knows the neighborhoods of Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Fort Greene and others could take the gentrification and resultant social changes and spun them into gold. Sometimes the issue is a sidebar to the family upheavals and connections, and sometime there is a direct correlation, but these characters are more than figments of a fertile mind. They are representatives of the population being displaced by "bike riders who actually wear helmets." Each story stands on its own, and as I've pointed out elsewhere, a well written collection of short stories is harder work than a novel of equal length.
April 21, 2023
I love an author that's new for me, especially when they write like this.
Witness is a collection of stories told from the point of view of an important witness to the events. Some are strange, some sad or disturbing but there are common themes of love, family and belonging in all the stories.
My favourites were The Happiest House on Union Street, Bartow Station and Comfort, which (as I think about it) are the most heart-wrenching but there's something beautiful about all the stories and the writing is excellent.
Lovely. I'll be looking out for more by Jamel Brinkley.
Witness is a collection of stories told from the point of view of an important witness to the events. Some are strange, some sad or disturbing but there are common themes of love, family and belonging in all the stories.
My favourites were The Happiest House on Union Street, Bartow Station and Comfort, which (as I think about it) are the most heart-wrenching but there's something beautiful about all the stories and the writing is excellent.
Lovely. I'll be looking out for more by Jamel Brinkley.
September 5, 2023
The best work of fiction I've read so far this year. I don't generally gravitate to short story collections, but having been impressed by Brinkley's debut, A Lucky Man, I moved this to the top of my to read shelf. All of the strengths of Lucky Man are here, but he also demonstrates an increased mastery of two important aspects of storytelling. First, he sets the stage deftly, immersing you in the place and time within a couple of paragraphs. Second, his use of allusions to ancestor texts, an important part of Lucky Man, is a bit quieter. Knowing the ancestor text (Henry Dumas's Ark of Bones for the stunning opening story Blessed Deliverance) is useful, but the story stands strongly on its own. It's a matter of degree--his reworking of Sonny's Blues in LM was beautiful. A wide gallery of unique individuals inhabit these pages, bearing witness, as the title suggests, to the complexities and contradictions of contemporary African American, and American, life. Bears comparison with the great short stories of James Alan McPherson, the gold standard for me over the last forty or so years of work in the genre.
December 24, 2023
I really liked Jamel Brinkley's first short story collection from a few years ago, A Lucky Man. But by the end of the second story in this wonderful collection, I had the realization that I will be reading everything that Jamel Brinkley writes in the future. This is a fantastic book and Brinkley is an incredibly gifted writer, both from a technical standpoint and from what he is able to do with his characters.
July 23, 2023
I love short stories so I was very excited to read WITNESS by Jamel Brinkley and I really enjoyed these stories! These ten stories focus on Black character’s experiences in their daily life, as families and friends, in moments from joy to grief. I enjoyed all the stories and my faves are Arrows and Bartow Station. Arrows is a ghost story featuring characters from three generations. Bartow Station is a sad story about a man who begins a new job and a new relationship. I loved the contemporary New York City setting. It was nice reading these stories throughout this month.
Thank you to FSG Books for my advance review copy!
Thank you to FSG Books for my advance review copy!
April 2, 2024
each of these stories burnish to a point in an incredibly satisfying way. each one better than the last. honestly thrilled to have read them.
“She learns my names too, and I learn that there are more of them than I knew, names for someone who is filth, someone who is base, someone who isn't fit to exist, or who doesn't exist at all. We play our roles. We learn each other's secret names, and say them, but neither of us learns the reasons they exist. We don't say if there are any, beyond the kink itself, beyond the raw pleasure of play. Maybe, in her case, there aren't any reasons. I guess it's possible that there aren't any in mine.”
tysm to netgalley for this rockin arc
“She learns my names too, and I learn that there are more of them than I knew, names for someone who is filth, someone who is base, someone who isn't fit to exist, or who doesn't exist at all. We play our roles. We learn each other's secret names, and say them, but neither of us learns the reasons they exist. We don't say if there are any, beyond the kink itself, beyond the raw pleasure of play. Maybe, in her case, there aren't any reasons. I guess it's possible that there aren't any in mine.”
tysm to netgalley for this rockin arc
December 1, 2023
I received a copy of this book for free via Goodreads giveaway. All opinions are my own.
While touching on hard topics such as gentrification, mental illness, police brutality, eating disorders, and aging, Brinkley crafted a series of short, almost slice-of-life style stories in this brief collection. While I thought the topics themselves were deftly handled, I found myself often overwhelmed by the prose. The sentences were long and sometimes meandering, though they did always have a point.
This is a series of stories filled with very technically successful writing I'm not sure if it's one I plan to revisit.
While touching on hard topics such as gentrification, mental illness, police brutality, eating disorders, and aging, Brinkley crafted a series of short, almost slice-of-life style stories in this brief collection. While I thought the topics themselves were deftly handled, I found myself often overwhelmed by the prose. The sentences were long and sometimes meandering, though they did always have a point.
This is a series of stories filled with very technically successful writing I'm not sure if it's one I plan to revisit.
December 16, 2022
Jamel Brinkley is a gifted writer and a brilliant story teller, the ten stories in this novel are no exception. 'Witness' gathers different people in stages of their life that leaves them an opportunity to 'bear witness'. All the stories are powerful and truly engrossing. Highly recommended reading and well worthy of five stars.
October 9, 2023
Came highly recommended by someone I trust with book recommendations, so I had high expectations. They were absolutely met, and some stories will stay with me. This collection of short stories starts and ends strong, but “Comfort” will stick in my memory as the most moving, extremely powerful take on grief, mental illness and compassion. Highly recommend and will be gifting it this upcoming holiday season.
August 20, 2023
Jamel Brinkley is one of our finest writers regardless of format or genre. Don't let the fact that he writes short stories keep you from discovering his genius. The ten stories in this collection subtly explore the act of perception, of seeing; of being a witness or a bystander.
October 8, 2023
Just beautiful.
The writing is so tight. Every word cuts. Every sentence is just... chewy. I read and reread sentences, some stories I read through several times just to make absolute sure. And still I'm not sure. I've been getting 90% of my books from the library this year. I think I might need to buy this one so I can give them all another go later when I'm a different version of me.
New York, mostly Brooklyn, is a character in herself that crosses through all the stories. The perfect set for all the vignettes of life that Brinkley serves up to us. The gentrification of black neighborhoods, and the growing economic struggle of living in the city is also a common thread through the book. And obviously witnessing and being witnessed. The act of seeing others, being seen, creating a self to be seen, how history warps how we see others and ourselves... Brinkley brings so much richness to these stories, which he expresses with no fluff. I really really loved these.
The writing is so tight. Every word cuts. Every sentence is just... chewy. I read and reread sentences, some stories I read through several times just to make absolute sure. And still I'm not sure. I've been getting 90% of my books from the library this year. I think I might need to buy this one so I can give them all another go later when I'm a different version of me.
New York, mostly Brooklyn, is a character in herself that crosses through all the stories. The perfect set for all the vignettes of life that Brinkley serves up to us. The gentrification of black neighborhoods, and the growing economic struggle of living in the city is also a common thread through the book. And obviously witnessing and being witnessed. The act of seeing others, being seen, creating a self to be seen, how history warps how we see others and ourselves... Brinkley brings so much richness to these stories, which he expresses with no fluff. I really really loved these.
April 2, 2023
I do like a well-written short story and this collection is very well written. All are set in New York and they tell of very human relationships between compelling characters. This is the defining feature of these stories: the relationships between the characters and this makes a very pleasant change from crime, murder etc. The characters and their gritty real lives felt at times like non-fiction memoirs rather than fiction. I found myself re-reading sections, just for the pleasure of reading those passages again.
September 20, 2023
Brilliantly written collection of short stories based on the theme of witnessing. Surprising, unexpected arcs that illustrate human nature in a wide range of responses to trauma/pain/loss. Always memorable. An author worth reading.
April 18, 2025
As it usually happens with short stories collections, you cannot connect to all of them, but to the ones you do, they make you appreciate the volume altogether.
My favorite stories were: "The Let-Out", "Comfort”, "Sahar” and "Witness".
My favorite stories were: "The Let-Out", "Comfort”, "Sahar” and "Witness".
December 9, 2023
"So much is made about the importance of achieving depth in human interactions, but what about the delicate surface, what about the skin?"
Witness is a collection of 10 contemporary short stories, set mainly in New York City. In his sophomore short story collection, Jamel Brinkley explored the impact and struggles of the people from NYC (in particular, Black Americans) in dealing with gentrification from the perspectives of varied characters: parents and children, siblings, romantic and sexual partners, in-laws, and even ghosts. "Everything I saw on the way back to the apartment became the object of my anger. The cracks in the sidewalks, the dust on the parked cars, the slowness of the occasional pedestrian - it all seemed jammed full of stupidity. The city struck me as an impossible place to live. What was I even doing here?" Through his observations of common contemporary life coupled with his melancholic prose, Brinkley invoked shadows of intimacy, grief, and human connections. Apart from showcasing his versatility as a short story writer, Brinkley masterfully crafted the perspectives of the "witness" and the "witnessed" of life.
My personal favorites in this collection would be "Arrows" (where the narrator is dealing and conversing with the ghost of his mother, amplifying the themes of trauma and grief where some people moved on but those who failed to do so, would be haunted by "ghosts"), "Bartow Station" (where the narrator begins a new job and relationship but is still haunted by the traumatic accident involving the death of his best friend), "The Let-Out" (where the narrator is befriended by an older woman who was involved in a romantic relationship with his estranged father in the past), "Witness" (where the Black narrator's sister's health issues are downplayed by a white doctor, which then resulted in her death). Although 1 or 2 stories lacked an emotional punch, it's still a well-executed collection, in which the stories' overarching theme can be traced back to James Baldwin's quote in the epigraph of the collection: "I was to discover that the line which separates a witness from an actor is a very thin line indeed; nevertheless, the line is real". A strong 4/5 star read to me. Thanks to Times Read for sending this review copy to me!
Witness is a collection of 10 contemporary short stories, set mainly in New York City. In his sophomore short story collection, Jamel Brinkley explored the impact and struggles of the people from NYC (in particular, Black Americans) in dealing with gentrification from the perspectives of varied characters: parents and children, siblings, romantic and sexual partners, in-laws, and even ghosts. "Everything I saw on the way back to the apartment became the object of my anger. The cracks in the sidewalks, the dust on the parked cars, the slowness of the occasional pedestrian - it all seemed jammed full of stupidity. The city struck me as an impossible place to live. What was I even doing here?" Through his observations of common contemporary life coupled with his melancholic prose, Brinkley invoked shadows of intimacy, grief, and human connections. Apart from showcasing his versatility as a short story writer, Brinkley masterfully crafted the perspectives of the "witness" and the "witnessed" of life.
My personal favorites in this collection would be "Arrows" (where the narrator is dealing and conversing with the ghost of his mother, amplifying the themes of trauma and grief where some people moved on but those who failed to do so, would be haunted by "ghosts"), "Bartow Station" (where the narrator begins a new job and relationship but is still haunted by the traumatic accident involving the death of his best friend), "The Let-Out" (where the narrator is befriended by an older woman who was involved in a romantic relationship with his estranged father in the past), "Witness" (where the Black narrator's sister's health issues are downplayed by a white doctor, which then resulted in her death). Although 1 or 2 stories lacked an emotional punch, it's still a well-executed collection, in which the stories' overarching theme can be traced back to James Baldwin's quote in the epigraph of the collection: "I was to discover that the line which separates a witness from an actor is a very thin line indeed; nevertheless, the line is real". A strong 4/5 star read to me. Thanks to Times Read for sending this review copy to me!
September 6, 2023
A tremendous story collection: it is rare that I read a book of short stories straight through, start to finish, deeply absorbed. Maybe Alice Munro or Tessa Hadley. Set mainly in Brooklyn (specifically Bed-Sty, Crown Heights: Central Brooklyn, yes? I live in Queens), "Witness" is like an extended family, or a family seen from all angles: the teenagers ready to make fun of the outlier of their group and then pulled up short by a bigger villain; the little girl raised by feuding father and uncle; the boy just discovering an institutionalized aunt, and thus her mother's sisters from a new vantage; the grown brother looking on as his sister marries foolishly, then suddenly, though not suddenly to her, dies. Brinkley observes the particular exigencies of Black American life--striving to better-than-survive and meeting up with the baked-in obstacles and indignities--with precision, honesty, grace.
September 17, 2023
"All a soul is," he said, "is the music in your body turned up loud enough for everyone to hear."
In this brilliant collection, Jamel Brinkley allows the souls of each of his characters to sing loud and clear and captures the feeling of New York life, as it feels, right now. With minimal set up, Brinkley drops a reader into these slice-of-life character studies while exploring issues of gentrification, grief, trauma, race, and class. Personally, I usually prefer a more direct narrative arc for short stories, but the depths and nuance with which Brinkley crafts all of his characters—and the sharpness and beauty of his writing—balanced out the often looser story-telling approach.
My favorites: "The Happiest House on Union Street," "Bartow Station," "Sahar," "That Particular Sunday"
In this brilliant collection, Jamel Brinkley allows the souls of each of his characters to sing loud and clear and captures the feeling of New York life, as it feels, right now. With minimal set up, Brinkley drops a reader into these slice-of-life character studies while exploring issues of gentrification, grief, trauma, race, and class. Personally, I usually prefer a more direct narrative arc for short stories, but the depths and nuance with which Brinkley crafts all of his characters—and the sharpness and beauty of his writing—balanced out the often looser story-telling approach.
My favorites: "The Happiest House on Union Street," "Bartow Station," "Sahar," "That Particular Sunday"
March 25, 2023
These stories were beautiful, tragic, haunting, and real. Each of them deal with the fluidity of relationships and memory and how we as individuals navigate both. The collection begins with a bang and one of the most perfect sentences and “Blessed Deliverance” and it ends with the title story which perfectly sums up how we love and hurt others. I look forward to teaching this collection. I received an ARC from NetGalley.
February 2, 2025
Първи опит ми е да слушам на английски. Признавам си не всичко разбрах, но мисля че направих правилен избор с тези истории, бяха кратки и вникнах в същността на повечето. Някои бяха странни, други тъжни, хареса ми
August 27, 2023
Screaming crying throwing up (positive) bc how does jamel Brinkley do it (admiration)
September 20, 2023
Each of these stories was unique, fantastic, and a full immersion into a different world. The tops stories for me were “Comfort”, “Sahar”, and “Bystander”.
February 1, 2023
This short story collection includes three previously published stories. Witness and Comfort won awards and are two examples of what make this collection an excellent read. I might add Bartow Station, my favorite, and Arrows, a close second. The Let-Out felt like a freeze frame of a fuller story, but that might simply be by comparison. Or, it could be that we learn an explosive backstory that is selfishly given yet not explored.
This distinguished author walks readers through life experiences that speak to our times. Experiences that drive characters to question and evaluate life, to stay stuck or move on.
My gratitude to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing this eARC.
This distinguished author walks readers through life experiences that speak to our times. Experiences that drive characters to question and evaluate life, to stay stuck or move on.
My gratitude to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing this eARC.
April 16, 2024
Absolutely loved this beautiful collection. When I finished it I couldn’t resist flipping back to the beginning to read again, just to enjoy this exquisite writing a bit more. I don’t usually go for short stories but this one… whew.
April 13, 2024
Started this last summer, finished it this spring. I liked this a lot—stories of people whose lives veered off, either largely or in small ways, from the course they thought they were on. Which is simplifying things in an effort to sum up, but I think it's a good frame. Brinkley writes beautifully, and I'm not always sure I buy his dialogue, it's part and parcel of that elegant prose so I'm fine with that. Less of the fierce energy of his first collection, A Lucky Man, but a good set of stories that make you think about life and trajectories and expectations, and care about even the most poorly behaved of his characters (there are a few).
June 11, 2025
Other than a few nice stories and an overall pretty lovely style, this book just kinda made me sad. A bunch of sad stories with intolerable characters being horrible to each other. If you want to know how to be a shut in, just choose any of the main characters and follow their lead.
Read
November 29, 2025“Arrows” / “That Particular Sunday” / “Bartow Station” / “Witness”
June 27, 2023
One of the things I love about literary fiction is the way that tiny actions can have monumental meaning. A word, a gesture, a character turning one way instead of the other can shift the story world profoundly.
So it is with the stories in Jamel Brinkley's new collection, Witness. The subjects are friendship, sibling relationships through the decades, romantic relationships that are functional, dysfunctional, and semi-functional. The themes run deeper: how race and gender constructs play out in individuals' lives, the consequences of violence—both domestic and societal, grief, loss, change.
Brinkley's skill shines in effortless but breathtaking phrases and characters who break your heart even as you shake your head at their foibles. He commands the narrative with just the right amount of revelation at just the right moment and is a master of the slow reveal: unfurling characters' secrets like a slow-motion video of a high-wire fall, maintaining an element of surprise without straining credulity.
I tried to choose a favorite, but I couldn't.
Would it be "Comfort," in which Simone, still struggling to get her life on track four years after her brother was killed by a police officer, takes up with a man she calls Bamboo because they met at a Caribbean restaurant? "She enjoys the ease of him, his willingness to come over whenever she asks him to, his compliance when she wants to be left alone. She likes that he doesn't insist too strongly on going out, or on talking about her troubles." She imagines the wife of the police officer, who was not convicted, and how moving to the suburbs, as the officer did after his administrative leave, "might be the fulfillment of an old-fashioned dream, a life of safety and peace away from the city. Or maybe she's bored out of her mind in the suburbs, maybe she despises it there." Simone drinks herself into oblivion as she ruminates on the officer and his family and her brother's last moments playing out in the squad car. The "comfort" of the title is revealed in the brief ending scene, told from Bamboo's point of view, which I won't spoil for readers.
Or my favorite could be "Arrows," a modern ghost story that doesn't reveal itself as such immediately, in which Helena haunts her husband and son from within the bedroom of the house she once inhabited. Or maybe "Gloria," in which a lonely older woman begins writing notes to her food delivery person. As a hospitality service worker herself, she finds herself entangled in the dynamics of the hotel's power structure. Her letters to the delivery person become more detailed, revealing her relationship with her late husband. "Before now," she writes, "I've never had deep, forthright correspondence with anyone. I've never kept a diary or a journal. A woman and her wall of books (and sometimes a flaming dress worth one's notice)—that's all I've ever been, really.”
Each story seemed more engaging than the last, and by the time I reached "Witness," the tenth, I had become a devoted fan of Brinkley's work and look forward to more.
I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley.
So it is with the stories in Jamel Brinkley's new collection, Witness. The subjects are friendship, sibling relationships through the decades, romantic relationships that are functional, dysfunctional, and semi-functional. The themes run deeper: how race and gender constructs play out in individuals' lives, the consequences of violence—both domestic and societal, grief, loss, change.
Brinkley's skill shines in effortless but breathtaking phrases and characters who break your heart even as you shake your head at their foibles. He commands the narrative with just the right amount of revelation at just the right moment and is a master of the slow reveal: unfurling characters' secrets like a slow-motion video of a high-wire fall, maintaining an element of surprise without straining credulity.
I tried to choose a favorite, but I couldn't.
Would it be "Comfort," in which Simone, still struggling to get her life on track four years after her brother was killed by a police officer, takes up with a man she calls Bamboo because they met at a Caribbean restaurant? "She enjoys the ease of him, his willingness to come over whenever she asks him to, his compliance when she wants to be left alone. She likes that he doesn't insist too strongly on going out, or on talking about her troubles." She imagines the wife of the police officer, who was not convicted, and how moving to the suburbs, as the officer did after his administrative leave, "might be the fulfillment of an old-fashioned dream, a life of safety and peace away from the city. Or maybe she's bored out of her mind in the suburbs, maybe she despises it there." Simone drinks herself into oblivion as she ruminates on the officer and his family and her brother's last moments playing out in the squad car. The "comfort" of the title is revealed in the brief ending scene, told from Bamboo's point of view, which I won't spoil for readers.
Or my favorite could be "Arrows," a modern ghost story that doesn't reveal itself as such immediately, in which Helena haunts her husband and son from within the bedroom of the house she once inhabited. Or maybe "Gloria," in which a lonely older woman begins writing notes to her food delivery person. As a hospitality service worker herself, she finds herself entangled in the dynamics of the hotel's power structure. Her letters to the delivery person become more detailed, revealing her relationship with her late husband. "Before now," she writes, "I've never had deep, forthright correspondence with anyone. I've never kept a diary or a journal. A woman and her wall of books (and sometimes a flaming dress worth one's notice)—that's all I've ever been, really.”
Each story seemed more engaging than the last, and by the time I reached "Witness," the tenth, I had become a devoted fan of Brinkley's work and look forward to more.
I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley.
September 9, 2023
Yet another great collection of short stories from Brinkley. His ability to create stories out of characters, to use each piece of prose to propel the narrative, to somehow write a ghost story that leaves the reader feeling more haunted than the house in question, and to address larger issues in almost a conversational fashion is what kept me turning page after page, pausing only to reflect upon and digest the story I’d just completed. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and wholeheartedly recommend it.
August 15, 2023
Sahar was my favorite out of the solid short stories!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 258 reviews