Friday Black

by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Un centro commerciale che durante le campagne di sconto del Black Friday viene invaso da orde di consumatori-zombie; un parco a tema in cui i bianchi possono simulare di uccidere presunti malintenzionati neri; l’autore e la vittima di una sparatoria in una scuola che, dopo morti, cercano di prevenirne un’altra; un gruppo di attivisti neri che vendica con surreale violenza l’ennesima clamorosa assoluzione di un omicida razzista; un mondo postapocalittico in cui ogni giorno si ripete, in un loop eterno, una catastrofe nucleare. I dodici racconti di Nana Adjei-Brenyah sono un ritratto distopico degli Stati Uniti contemporanei, in cui la realtà del consumismo, delle diseguaglianze di classe, delle tensioni razziali, dell’uso incontrollato delle armi da fuoco vengono portate alle loro estreme conseguenze, usando in maniera brillante i dispositivi della satira, della narrativa fantastica, dell’horror. Al cuore delle storie restano però personaggi umanissimi e credibili, nostri simili, che cercano di conservare la sanità mentale o la coerenza morale in un mondo che deraglia: a loro – a noi – l’autore affida la sua speranza. Un esordio potentissimo, con un immaginario degno di Black Mirror e una lingua essenziale e tagliente, che ha ricevuto elogi da grandi nomi della scena letteraria americana come George Saunders e Colson Whitehead, e paragoni con classici contemporanei del calibro di Kurt Vonnegut e Ralph Ellison.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Race, Dystopia

225 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2018

About the author

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is from Spring Valley, New York. He graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University.

He was the '16-'17 Olive B. O'Connor fellow in fiction at Colgate University.

His work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Guernica, Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, Printer’s Row, Gravel, and The Breakwater Review, where he was selected by ZZ Packer as the winner of the 2nd Annual Breakwater Review Fiction Contest. Friday Black is his first book.

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The edge of the stories in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s debut collection Friday Black is razor sharp, ready to cut deep. This book is dark and captivating and essential. This book is a call to arms and it is a condemnation. Adjei-Brenyah offers powerful prose as parable. The writing in this outstanding collection will make you hurt and demand your hope. Read this book. Marvel at the intelligence of each of these stories and what they reveal about racism, capitalism, complacency and their insidious reach.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Shoelookers don't really do anything to anybody except make them proud to be themselves and not a no-good shoe-looker. People say that if you tell a lot of lies you eventually start being all depressed and weepy like them. The shoelookers don't feel anything but sad. They feel it so much you can see it in everything they do. They're always looking at the ground.”

Friday Black left me absolutely speechless. I love short stories, and this collection is in a league of its own. It's dystopian, political, a commentary on black lives in America. Talking foetuses, racism as sport and deadly Black Friday sales are just some of the wild scenarios in this book.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is so incredibly skillful at creating worlds that deal with heightened, sharper versions of issues to which we tend to numb ourselves. The satire hits with a punch and sometimes the violence is shocking and sometimes it's a little shocking how normal it feels.

His command of language is pure, authentic, and strong. All 12 stories hit me in the heart and every time one concluded, I sunk a little deeper into the soul of this collection. Then, upon finishing the last story, realised the necessity of this book.

I took so much away from these stories. Stories that present hard issues in ways that make it impossible for the reader to not have an emotional response.

This is writing at its best!

Congratulations Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. I can’t recommend this collection highly enough. Everyone should read this book.

Extra excited to read Chain-Gang All-Stars now!

“Her hand is warm plus strong. She stabs the injector needle in. My head feels the way an orange tastes. I open my eyes and look at her. She waits. I look at her more. She frowns, then gives me another shot. And then I feel the Good.”

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Every inch of my black skin painted the maroon of life.’

‘If I had to write a book on morality,’ author and existentialist Albert Camus once wrote in his notebooks, ‘it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last page I should write ‘I recognize only one duty, and that is to love.’ It seems so simple: to love and to be loved, and one can look to the beauty and love in the world and feel hope but yet far too often we look about and see the absence of love creeping its way like a shadow at dusk through human interactions. Racial injustice, class struggles, violence, profiling, war, misogyny, genocide, all theses and more feast on the absence of love and fear-monger love away in order to attain power. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s incredible debut Friday Black is a harrowing peak into the ways a lack of love and empathy have wormed their way into the heart of society. Across twelve bone-chilling stories taking place from the present to only slightly futuristic, dystopian societies, Adjei-Brenyah points our face directly at racism and injustice while examining the mechanisms underneath that make all these horrors possible. From fear-mongering and blind hatred to irresponsible use of technology and the normalization of stereotypes, these stories confront the conditions of Black people in a world weaponized against them and how that affects them. Through an interplay of the capitalist critique and examinations of racism, Adjei-Brenyah delivers story after story of prophetic power that shows the damnation of a world and reminds us that this is happening and we are all complicit.

This author is certainly one to watch in the future and his debut screams with passionate urgency to be read. Having received his MFA at Syracuse University and studying under the wonderful George Saunders one might draw a connection between their works. Sure, both have slightly dystopian settings and well-timed and tempered use of humor that both breaks the tension while also creating an ominous tone that reveals the absurdity in the world, but Adjei-Brenyah rises above mere comparison and is a voice unto himself. These stories smolder on the page and burn themselves right into you and you simply cannot look away. Nor should you. While at worst some of the stories could be called “too on-the-nose”, this in no way detracts from their impact. Adjei-Brenyah’s vision of today cuts right to the afflictions of violence and racism which we cannot ignore.

The first story, the Finklestein 5, might be one of the most important stories from 2018 and certainly deserves to be anthologized. If you read only one, this might be the best choice though without the full weight of the collection you’d be doing yourself a massive disservice. This story confronts the everyday of being Black in America and having to be fully conscious of that in every action one takes.

Emmanuel started learning the basics of his Blackness before he knew how to do long division: smiling when angry, whispering when he wanted to yell.

Emmanuel is constantly checking his Blackness on a scale of 1-10: put his hood up, the number increases, put on a button up shirt and nice shoes, it decreases. Ours is a world where policies like Stop and Frisk have specifically target Black youth and, in the story, Emmanuel is painfully aware that simply being Black is cause enough for a police officer to throw him up against the wall. The story initially unfolds as what would be a typical day for him yet in the background of everyone’s mind is a court case that has just concluded. A white man has taken a chainsaw and murdered five Black children outside a public library, claiming it to be self-defence and has been acquitted.

We live in a world where far too often a cop walks free while an unarmed Black youth is buried. Read the poetry of Danez Smith and witness the crushing trauma that assaults a person when this is normalized. The defendant’s lawyer drums up the typical defense and as you read it your blood will boil knowing this is exactly how people walk free. ‘A hardworking, middle-class white man is put in a situation where he has to defend himself,’ the lawyer pleads, ‘all of a sudden he’s a ‘racist’...a ‘murderer’...’ Cue the argument that we need freedom, and suddenly everyone cries patriotic tears because the comforts of whiteness are always centered over the mortality of Black people. You’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. Now Emmanuel is seeing it and everyone in the community is seeing it and it becomes too much to bear. The ‘say their names’ becomes an angry cry and people decide to do something about it. This is a story you will never forget, and I would strongly urge you to read it and confront the way it makes you feel. Adjei-Brenyah is not writing for the comfort of white readers and nor should he; these are stories to challenge people.

More pointed is a story called Zimmer Land, which, you guessed it, definitely wants to bring the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman to the forefront of your mind while reading it. In brief, this story follows a young man who is an actor in a virtual reality “park” where players get to experience what it would be like in a real Stand Your Ground scenario. Bluntly, white people pay to be placed in what feels like a real street with a Black man who they are encouraged to use deadly force to stop. Adjei-Brenyah pulls no punches.

What works best in these stories is when they look to the way employees in situations such as this are complicit. Take his three stories about a retail employee named IceKing working in a jacket store in a slightly futuristic, absurdist mall reality. While the three stories seem to hint at what could have made a great novella, the fractured nature of them in the collection adds an extra element of uneasiness and loss of stability even in a familiar narrative. The title story, Friday Black, is a comical and frightening look at the Black Friday shopping day from a retail perspective but with piles of trampled dead being swept into a pile in a corner of the mall and people foaming at the mouth stricken with Friday Black: a consumerist madness that basically turns them into zombies. Absurdist, but not far from the truth. I read this while still working as a shift supervisor in the busiest store of our downtown community and have many other retail Black Fridays under my belt and I have to say I was quite charmed by this story.

The three stories about IceKing reveal the ugly side of retail where your own abilities are used to further oppress you in the company. Here we see employees sabotaging each other to get the highest sales to win a prize but also doing so regularly because the store is commissioned based. The story In Retail is framed around how to keep your sanity in retail to not end up like a former employee who threw herself out a window to her death while at work. Retail is a tough life, and a lot of really good people get stuck there hoping to finally get out and into a career. You have shift supervisors with multiple degrees, basic employees working on their PhDs, people working multiple jobs just trying to afford rent and companies use this to their advantage. Your most capable employees get all the difficult shifts like working every single weekend. Desperation and financial need gets people giving up days off to take a shift and doing any terrible shift they are asked because making waves is a quick way to get fired and few people have the financial stability to afford that. Suddenly you begin to wonder if your willingness to accept these conditions is making a statement that this is okay and normalizing exploitation that is also harming your coworkers. This comes up frequently in Zimmer Land, that if they are willing to do the job, what does it say about them? Are they complicit in a game that further stigmatizes the Black community and glorifies violence against them?

Adjei-Brenyah examines employees who have bought into the vision of their companies and even begin to spout the propaganda in their daily lives (something frequently explored in Orwell’s 1984). Zimmer Land, they say, is about helping people learn who they are, face fears and consider the importance of justice. However, are they ‘equating killing and justice’? And the employees who question this drive themselves mad with a sort of self-gaslighting feeling they are the wrongdoers for being complicit while those who buy into it criticize them for their lack of faith and negative attitudes. This is the way the powerful keep power: by redirecting guilt onto those beneath them and letting them fight amongst themselves when really it is they who bear the responsibility. This recalls Bill Cosby’s unfortunate Pound Cake speech where he placed the blame of racism against the Black community on themselves saying they shouldn’t commit crime if they didn’t want to be profiled as criminals, which completely ignores the long history of social hierarchy and socio-economic conditions that created the conditions of crime. For a good explanation on this, the prologue to Ibram X. Kendi's essential How To Be an Antiracist brilliantly breaks down the inherently racist issues with this mentality (Trevor Noah has a really good explanation on the subject as well from just the other day that you can watch HERE). This is what Ta-Nehisi Coates equates to being like ‘to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding.’ Adjei-Brenyah brilliantly comingles theories on the oppression with retail employees with the Black community and reminds us that the real problem is those in power who weaponize people against each other, like the employees aggressing each other to get highest sales which, ultimately, mostly benefits the owners. Insert long explanation about surplus labor as theft and then make this a metaphor for white society oppressing black society and suddenly these stories shine out. This is how the powerful retain their power. Those without power vastly outnumber those with and could take it if they organized, but those with power are ensuring they are too tired, too hungry, too poor, too angry and too pitted against each other for that to ever happen.

‘even though I’m being true, they’d say I was being emotional and it was clouding my truth.’

Another major question asked is if they are using this virtual reality technology irresponsibly? Much like in our current lives where we are still discovering how internet technology and social media has changed society, such as reports about how bullying has become worse when the bullying can continue at any moment through social media and teen suicide rates are rising, have we as humans failed in using our own technology responsibly? The story The Era depicts a dystopian society where people are either “clear born”--how we are now--or have pre-birth where geneticists create a more “ideal” human. Naturally there becomes a massive class divide between the two and as society gears more towards the idea of the “ideal” we see it also means cutting off basic empathy. A teacher applauds a student for insulting another saying ‘Back before the Turn, Scotty might not have been honest...and Samantha would go on thinking he thought what she said was smart’. Even the narrator's parents bluntly admit he is a mistake and they didn’t want him, because honesty and empathy have become a sign of weakness. Without love central to how we interact, what sort of world are we building?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has created an extraordinary collection of stories that will cut right through you and expose the ways we gas-light ourselves into allowing the horrors of the world to continue. Also this book has some of the most amazing cover art I’ve ever seen. Looking at racism, violence, and then way a capitalist culture upholds itself through oppression of those beneath them. There is something for everyone in here: ghosts, time-looping, dystopia, humor, zombies, retail hell, and more. Its a book you’ll want to have a drink on hand for and it pairs quite nicely with the film Sorry to Bother You which explores a lot of the same themes and resonates with a similar humorously absurdist strength. This is a book where people are crying out for help, yelling please stop, please understand, and those with social capital are distorting the world to turn away from those in need. This is not a comfortable book to read, but it might be one we all need.
⅘

‘Even the apocalypse isn't the end. That, you could only know when you're standing before a light so bright it obliterates you. And if you are alone, posed like a dancer, when it comes, you feel silly and scared. And if you are with your family, or anyone at all, when it comes, you feel silly and scared, but at least not alone.’

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Is a "5 Under 35" Honoree 2018 of the National Book Foundation
..and this is how you write cutting-edge fiction about the world we live in! Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut is bold, powerful, innovative, and poetic. Every other blurb is randomly claiming that the author of the respective book has a unique voice - this author actually does, and this fall, his short stories are mandatory reading.

"Friday Black" encompasses 12 stories, many of them dealing with racism, consumerism, violence, and the culture of egotism and hate - this book is a comment on today's America (which doesn't mean that some of the issues discussed aren't prevalent in other countries as well). What makes this collection so special is the way the author approaches those topics, introducing fantastical elements, projecting the consequences of the cultural climate on invented scenarios and highlighting tendencies by smartly employing hyperbole. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah wants his readers to look straight into the abyss: A white man kills black kids with a chainsaw and claims self-defense, Black Friday turns a shopping mall into the battleground of the zombie apocalypse, "Good" is now a drug for school children, and there's an amusement park that could have been invented by horror director Eli Roth.

On Twitter, Roxane Gay stated that if you like Childish Gambino's "This is America" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjW...), you will also love this - and I see where this comparison is coming from. Also, both of these works of art punch you in the face and leave you in complete shock and awe. In case you need more comparisons: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's voice is as recognizable as that of Ottessa Moshfegh, and his disregard for narrative conventions reminds me of Carmen Maria Machado.

Oh, and in case I haven't made this clear enough by now: You should READ THIS BOOK. The whole thing is great, but especially "The Finkelstein 5" and "Zimmer Land".

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently read “The Heads of The Colored People”, a terrific debut collection of 12 short stories by Nafissa Thompson-Spires — I reached for another debut collection of 12 more short stories.

First - I have Goodreads member Meike to thank. It was her review that inspired me. Thank you Meike.

So...........
I had no idea what to expect. I still can’t entirely figure out the book cover’s drawing. I have some ideas - but I’m a little curious if there is a specific meaning behind it.

I’ll dive right in. That’s certainly what the author does with the first story
called “The Finkelstein 5”. My mouth was hanging open reading it.....”WHAT THE HELL?” I almost didn’t trust myself - maybe I was reading things wrong? The author took brutality, extreme violence ( but thankfully not graphic), injustice, racism, and a broken criminal system to a whole new realm of......”what the f#@k?”
BUT .... I don’t want spoil the story by dishing out details.
I totally loved reading these stories knowing nothing about them. I went in completely blind and I was blindsided.
.....in a good way!

I didn’t get the point of the next SHORT -SHORT - really really SHORT story. “Things My Mother Said”. I got a message - without much a meal to go with it...
but as I said it’s ‘short’... so it’s not long enough to irritate. 😊

Moving on....
It took me awhile to realize that not only are these stories set in the near future ( not so far out -by any means), but perhaps the author has created a genre of his own:
“Political Dystopian Fiction”. Adjei-Brenyah examines the Black experience throughput and every story feels political.

The title story “Friday Black” is priceless ....it’s entertaining in the way dark humor is...but what is actually so disturbing when you really tell the truth to yourself ( but read this story first to get what I’m talking about)...is it will be easy to see the absurdity of people - but what’s less easy to see WE EACH ARE PART OF THIS insanity.
I can think of times I’ve sat around with people, maybe over a glass of wine talking arrogantly about what other people do that’s nuts - things I wouldn’t do - BUT IF I REALLY LOOK CLOSER -I am part of the same problem that I blame.

These stories are excellent - terrific debut! It doesn’t take long to learn that we have been introduced to a fearless new author with fresh ideas. We can’t help but look at the political & social issues we grapple with in our current lives.


Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a long name. I’d like to remember it - remember HIM.... I don’t want to stumble and feel awkward trying to remember it five months from now
So.... maybe? He wouldn’t mind if I simply called him *NANA*.....( I can definitely remember that).....
which brings me warm fuzzy feelings ....loving the dog NANA in Peter Pan.

I look forward to reading more books by *Nana*!!! Congrats to Nana on his powerful debut short stories!

[Gaurav Sagar · Rating 4 out of 5]

You are supreme and infinite.

Humanity has been quite strange, right from the outbreak of civilization. It is so full of darkness that if time takes reverse turn and our forefathers look at us, they would be taken aback by its sheer degeneracy; humanity has become so inhumane in itself that they would evolve back into ‘lower beings’ from horror so that earth or rather universe might be saved. The most civilized beings, who are ironically us, who think that we are supreme and infinite, who are so mad after power which may come through religion, oppression, suppression that we have become blind to see that it would ruin us- the humanity- eventually. Human beings have devised so many ways and means to control the organic flow of life that there had been numerous scars which had stained humanity over the age of evolution; we would be ashamed and abashed to face our future generations, if there would be any. Some of these scars the book deals with may be said to be as racial injustice, class struggles, violence, profiling, war, misogyny, genocide.



We have created issues which seem illogical right from the word go, however our entire existence keeps on struggling to cope up with these issues. Racism, in all of its forms, remains a massive cause of discrimination, indignity, and lack of equality for millions of people in the world today. Addressing racism in the world today requires understanding how human rights are violated by racial ideologies in addition to discriminatory acts. It is so ingrained in us that sometimes we don’t even realize it that we are racist. And racism is not restricted to western civilization, as some believe; the colonial culture has propagated into those too who had been oppressed. Every time such incidents, in which a race is declared superior to others, leave a bad taste in your mouth, in fact there are some ‘enlightened’ people who’ve written about gene supremacy. We also need to understand that racism is not just limited to social discrimination or apartheid, with this comes the economic, judicial, existential prejudice too. In fact, the entire life of some people becomes just an existential struggle due to it and oftener than not, end up in crisis. The violence which comes as an underlined impact of racism shows its gravity and the extent to which it may affect those who are at receiving ends. The unique feature of racist violence is that it has a ripple effect: not only does the individual have to deal with the hurt and isolation but everyone who shares that person’s identity becomes a potential target. This community then has a shared fear that they are vulnerable to harassment and violence because of their identity. We have seen off late that people don’t get much concerned on hearing news or incidents of heinous crimes based upon racism, since we have become so immune to adversaries of life that no injustice boils our soul any more, and it’s dangerous trend as we are becoming accomplice to such grave crimes, though unknowingly but certainly unacted.

I generally do not read new authors, for I’m quite selective reader as perhaps I’m afraid of bad experience a book might leave you with. I got inspired from the review of my Goodreads’s friend -S.penkivich’s superb review, I immediately decided to buy the book and take a dig at it. Friday Black brings forth a new but a sharp, witty and pleasantly surprising voice to the world literature, the voice which is sharp like razor and can cut deep into your consciousness. Friday Black is as intellectually hefty as fiction can get. In these twelve stories, Adjei-Brenyah turns over ideas about racism, about classism and capitalism, about the apocalypse, and, most of all, about the corrosive power of belief. His work is fiercely, spikily funny. And no matter how supernatural his stories get, how speculative his fiction is, each one of them talks about the world as we know it. The excitement it brings with itself wrapped underneath it, the furious, witty, captivatingly dark but quintessential study of humanity in a dystopian world where violence is used as resort to make way through the vagaries of life. The stories come as a dark revelation to the reader, as they are immensely charming but edgy and insightful but brutally honest narrated through believable but frightening narrators. These striking stories set in twisted prosaic settings, explore themes surrounding black identity as it relates to a range of contemporary social issues.



As you pick up the book, you are thrown into muck of savagery which is swathed in the fabric of racism which takes you through the hell- the Inferno, in which brutal violence shudder your notions of a civilized society and you are forced to contemplate about yourself- the humanity. Men of particular race or color are killed in the name or rather joke of self-defense and the murderer has been acquitted. You are filled with utter disgust which traverse through the painful track to your stomach, the repulsion it creates inside you, is not something you may digest, for how can assimilate something which is part of you. The abhorrence you feel cut deep in your heart and a vomit of unendurable aversion wants to spew out from your mouth, but you want to hold it back due to your utter shame. Tears come to the very brim of your eyes, you want to cry but you are not strong enough to stand your own humiliation, such clump of darkness you have become! You are taken through dystopic muck and more before landing you in a transcendent spiritual place.
Some of the stories such as The Era are bittersweet satire on the impact of racism. An instinctive and unlearned person may that these are petty issues but the book does not talk to such man. The story is set in a dystopian futuristic world wherein you are robbed off your emotions, your natural feelings, in which your knowledge and intelligence have to be relearned. Being emotional isn’t prideful, and being truthful, prideful, and intelligent are the best things. The State now decides you should feel and what you should feel. The useless things like literature, music which are used for self- amusement in old world have no place in the new world, for the new world is progressive wherein they have created things which may keep you amused and happy. And those, who still follow the norms of old world, are supposed to inferior ad they are better named as shoelookers, for what good they have done to look upright. A few of the stories—“Friday Black,” “In Retail” and “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing”—confront consumerism with razor-sharp satire. In Adjei-Brenyah’s world the workers of the Prominent Mall routinely mop up pools of blood following store-aisle riots: “It isn’t always like this,” says the narrator of “Friday Black.” “This is the Black Weekend. Other times, if somebody dies, at least a clean-up crew comes with a tarp.”




”Joke-tellers, humor-makers,” says Father McStowe. “Back in the old world, it was a life profession to make laughter. One of many interesting old-world lives.”


The stories such as ‘Lark Street’ deals with prominent modern world issues such as abortion in a quite straight-forward but piercing manner, the weakness of the narrator is portrayed like some free flow black muck. The Hospital Where," a story in which a young writer devotes himself to the Twelve-tongued God, who imbues his imagination with real-world power. Whatever he writes comes true. The responsibility is total, and hard to harness. His efforts to heal the sick go awry. The story takes the road if imagination on which the divinely endowed narrator chooses a path to get the people free of the vicious circle of existence. We see a tinge of absurdity of life here conveyed using supernatural themes.


The dark and wry humor associated with the stories can’t be missed, as we see in Zimmer Land, a black man works at the titular theme park where white people and their children are allowed to shoot him in a virtual simulation: “It was better for me to get fake blasted 10 or 20 million times a day than for an actual kid to get murdered out of the world forever.” The irony of the vagaries of life prevalent in the modern world is painted on a tapestry of absurdity through sardonic disposition. Zimmer Land is another story of the collection which hits you deep. The greatest illusion of the technology may be that it can offer experience without consequence. Isaiah feels loyal to his employer, but he’s also highly attuned to the social and ethical complexities and implications of Zimmer Land’s services. As the black youth in “Cassidy Lane,” Isaiah observes the zeal with which many customers (who are armed in the module) escalate the otherwise innocuous encounter as if intent less on “problem solving” than on aggressive confrontation and even murder. ‘Zimmer Land’ and ‘The Era’ are imaginative and feel like societal mirrors in an accessible way. In the violent closing story Through the Flash, Ama is a mass murderer with superhuman strength who’s trying to mend her ways by volunteering at an old folks’ home and protecting her brother from the evils of her former protégé Carl.

I dream this dream often. But this time, after I'm dead, I feel my soul peeling from my body. My soul looks down at the body, and says, 'I'm here.


We see utter violence in the final story, Through the Flash, which is an intense and harrowing Groundhog Day journey in which day got struck infinite loop of time and starts over again and again with flash. The infinite loop of reality represents here infinite possibilities of infinite time, and its potential implications for morality and redemption. The story moves and breathe and explode on the page. The narrator has to resort to extreme violence to save his brother time and again as they are struck in a loop. The loop here may represents the horrifying and heart-rending condition of those who are oppressed, who have been trying to get away from the powerful jaws of tyranny (which exists on brutality) and it is being caught again and again or the freedom is just an illusion, the jaws are too powerful to break free at all.




We see the threads of magic realism woven expertly and deftly around the themes of dystopia in which the characters are endowed with bit of divine power, which takes them through the absurdities and bigotries of life. The supreme deity may sometime expresses itself through Twelve-tongued God; sometimes through its sheer immortality; sometimes it's a preternatural gift for selling jackets. Death, murder and violence are constants throughout this book, and appear in most stories, even the ones that seem to be the most benign. It can often feel too much and so this is a collection that you might pick up and put down, rather than being able to read through. One thing can be said with conviction about these stories that these are ingenious, so daring and mind-bending that you haven’t a clue where you’re being taken to. We see that in each of the stories the narrator is trapped in situations which are not kind to him. He has to resort either to supernatural or intelligent but exploiting or violent but honest means to pull himself out of those traps.


The dystopian story collection as full of violence as it is of heart. To achieve such an honest pairing of gore with tenderness is no small feat. We see quite a few instances right through the collection wherein the violence is portrayed as poetry. Red blood drizzled the concrete. Or in Friday Black- Now I have a jagged smile on my left arm. A sickle, half circle, my lucky Friday scar. The trivialization of the heinous crimes of humanity in effect intensifies their impact in a sarcastic and humiliating way, which forces humanity to ponder upon itself, it’s history. The language crafted by the author with the precision of a surgeon so as to have an underlying theme of irony or sarcasm so the words may strike right chord with your sensibility and would not just hung in open air.

Which meant for the reasons we still don’t know, we each came to realize we were replaying the same thing over and over, and the realizing happened at different times for everyone. It was a pretty alarming thing. To see you’re trapped in infinity and know that no one can explain exactly how or why.

In Friday Black, the ethical rot and tumult coming from America's buyer culture is pounded home through the eyes of a shopping center's adored, top-selling colleague: "A lady climbed the denim divider searching for a second pair her size. She was shouting and shaking the wooden cubby divider so hard that the entire thing nearly fell on Duo and everyone in his area. Pair jabbed her off the divider with his range. She fell on her neck. Another lady grabbed the SkinnyStretches from her dead hands." A later story, How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing, takes us back to the shopping center as the top vender loses his position of authority, his curve point of view denoting the contrast among white and dark clients: "When they mean me, they state, 'the tall one', on the off chance that they're white. In the event that they're dark, they state, 'the dark person'". The accompanying story In Retail comes back to an increasingly cutting edge tone that doesn't exactly work with the horrendous topic of an associate's suicide. The attachment of early stories gets lost now and again with more tightly topical improvement and progressively bound together endings required in stories like The Lion and the Spider and Light Spitter.


In “Friday Black,” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has written a powerful and important and strange and beautiful collection of stories meant to be read by everyone of us who care about justice, who care about humanity. The words of the author are like razor-sharp which cuts through our mind into the realm of your imagination to take you through the embarkment of horrors of humanity. As it is the case with all great dystopian works, Friday Black seems to based in a futuristic world but it’s very much about the world we live in right now.

All you feel is infinite, knowing all the falls and leaps and sweet and death that’s ever been will be trumped by the wall of nuclear flying at you. You of all people. Then, before you’re gone, you know that all that’s ever been will still be, even if there are no tomorrows. Even the apocalypse isn’t the end.

[Reggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah proves he is a star by beginning a literary career with this charged story collection.

The commentary on capitalism & consumerism alone is worth your time. Whether it's the subtle commentary through trademark symbols on select items the characters from several stories use, most notably the drugs from "The Era," or the larger things such as mall patrons literally killing each other to get the best Black Friday sales in the eponymous "Friday Black."

I saw a little of my old self in the character IceKing who narrates "Friday Black," & "How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing." IceKing is a charismatic & cocky employee of a clothing store who sells his ass off and is really convinced that if he wasn't around to "save the day" that his place of employment would potentially suffer. As if he isn't as disposable as anyone else, regardless of your stats, or the amount of pepperoni pizza your District Manager will treat you to.

The commentary on race through the (clearly) "Song of Solomon" inspired intro "The Finkelstein 5," has garnered high praise in many circles, but my personal preference, and perhaps the best story in the collection, was "Zimmer Land." I really appreciate the conversation I feel "Zimmer Land" wants us to have around the packaging, selling & consumption of Black and Brown pain.

There has been several times when I've seen this collection compared to Black Mirror... I suppose now is the time for me to give that a watch... While I'm doing that I'll be patiently awaiting Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's next project.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: In the stories of Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, an amusement park lets players enter augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders played by minority actors, a school shooting results in both the victim and gunman stuck in a shared purgatory, and an author sells his soul to a many-tongued god.

Adjei-Brenyah's writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage, and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day. These stories tackle urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest and explore the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LOCAL LIBRARY. THANKS, Y'ALL!

My Review: A young African American man writes speculative fiction about the alt-present/near-term future from the point of view of the deeply disadvantaged, the ones whose American Dream is a nightmare. An editor sees it, is probably appalled but is certainly moved, and for a minor miracle of a wonder, buys this amazingly assured debut collection of stories by first-generation American Author Adjei-Brenyah. Wherever he saw an odd, he beat it, did the young author. Syracuse University MFA? Now, with this man's debut, that means something to me, where before I'd never have so much as fluttered an eyelid as the words crossed my field of vision.

And speaking of vision, this cover is something special, isn't it? (He's no slouch in the handsome derby either!)

A statement of the powerful reading contained within. This detail image is so pretty I can't resist sharing it:


Author Adjei-Brenyah says, "I do bad at school because sometimes I think when I should be learning." (p29) I nod. I totally understand this kid who's speaking. As the school day unfolds over the next four pages, the Long Big War and HowItWas class, and not only am I clear on how we got here, I'm pretty darn sure that somehow he's come back from the future to warn us what's coming. And man is he pissed off. You won't blame him when you read the collection. Note absence of conditional in previous sentence. Not if, when. These are stories you need.

As is my habit, I'll offer some impressions of each story a la my quondam pal Bryce in his inimitable Method. (He did it better than I do, I'm only aping the form.)

The Finkelstein 5 made me want to vomit. I had to google it to be sure it wasn't reportage. Emmanuel's chant of "Fela St. John, Fela St. John" will haunt my nightmares. How we can look at ourselves as we shave and titivate in our sparkly mirrors is beyond my emotional comprehension. There is a slow-motion genocide against African Americans and this story shouts, "they released the brakes! and the hounds!" at the top of its paper lungs. 4 stars

Things My Mother Said is, in 500 or so words, a complete and compelling worldbuilding sketch. This man has the chops. 3 stars

The Era is an updated Brave New World/This Perfect Day tale about industrial mood management; its effects on high schoolers, families, hierarchies; it packs one helluva wallop as deeply undesirable "shoelookers" claim another "dumb/slow" clear-born, someone whose parents didn't use OptiLife™. Chilled me more than a martini in a shaker. Haunting for its deep anger. No one should ever think for a second that the Millennials' kids are safe.

She steps to me. I stretch my neck out for her and close my eyes. She puts one hand on one side of my neck. Her hand is warm plus strong. She stabs the injector needle in. My head feels the way an orange tastes. I open my eyes and look at her. She waits. I look at her more. She frowns, then gives me another shot. And then I feel the Good.

Soma, anyone? Extra treatments? Yes, Author Ira Levin, I see your vision refuses to die as it steadily approaches. 5 stars

Lark Street is one fucked-up fever dream of guilt, loneliness, bad decisions, the crushing weight of morality grinding a boy into his mortality's disease vector.

An impossible hand punched my earlobe. An unborn fetus, aborted the day before, was standing at my bedside. His name was Jackie Gunner.
"So, I guess you didn't have the balls?" Jackie Gunner said. His voice was a stern squeak. My eyelids rolled open. He was a tiny silhouette on the end of my pillow. Smaller than a field mouse.
"Well, say something, Dad." He said Dad the way some people say cunt. "Do you even feel bad?"
"Yeah," I said. "I feel real bad."
"I feel real bad," Jackie Gunner repeated. "Is real bad a hole big enough to fit our lives in?"
"Our?" I said.
"It's a metaphor, Daddy," said a new voice, this one shy, charming even. A second tiny fetus climbed up my comforter onto my bed. Her name, I knew, was Jamie Lou.

There is no hiding from consequences in Author Adjei-Brenyah's world. 4.5 stars for some frankly unworthy-of-him gender stereotyping

The Hospital Where brings us on a w-verb-filled journey through a young writer's bargaining with the Twelve-Tongued God (I love this concept!), who promises him Everything in return for his abject servitude to Story. It's gloriously weird; it contains multitudes (of winks); it resonates with the agonized scream of an abandoned boy demanding his daddy not leave. What, indeed, have you done.

Soon I was staring at a small entryway sign that read RADIOLOGY I. In the hall there was an extremely old man in a wheelchair. He groaned steadily. His white skin looked stretched and spotty. It seemed someone had forgotten him or maybe was using him to prop open the door. There were so many tubes going in and coming out of him that I couldn't imagine where they began or ended. I walked past quickly. Farther down the same hall, a black guy in a wheelchair stared in my direction with eyes so empty I thought they might suck something out of me.

Shivery horripilatingly pure prose telling of a son's psychotic break...or possibly apotheosis...as his father succumbs by degrees to cancer in an uncaring, unfeeling system with classist assumptions informing its death-care. 5 stars

Zimmer Land felt so real to me that, again, I had to google it to be sure it wasn't. It's what I feel about the oddly innocuous-sounding "first-person shooter" games that scare me, disgusting visceral violence as the perp sees it, made more revoltingly real. Living, breathing black men get shot (but not harmed...physically) for a living. In a world where George Zimmer is free but Trayvon Martin is dead, it's almost pornographic. No, it isn't. Scratch the "almost."

The first day of Zay's new job in Zimmer Land's Creative department, a job his ex landed for him thus dragging him up from a mere black body in a safe place for a white "patron" to enact his violent racist fantasies on, is moved an hour earlier; his boss "forgot" to tell him, one senses because his boss was nudged that way by the company founder...a Zardoz-like holographic head whose body is in Cabo schmoozing the banksters for R&D money...since the founder is dating Zay's ex. Corporate politics, racism, end-stage capitalism (the park is about to allow minors in to experience the thrill of murdering a black man). What a piece of work is Man, man. 5 stars

Friday Black reminds me of why I don't do shopping during the xmas rush. I'm not all the way sure it's fiction. The insane stuff-lust that I've seen on news broadcasts as hordes violently rush displays of useless brummagem objects in a desperate race to Buy to Have to Possess the Latest...! Deaths are still rare on Black Friday...for now.... 3 stars

The Lion & The Spider interweaves the Trickster Anansi outwitting the boastful Lion with a son's fear, rage, betrayal as he learns his father is a human being without losing his need to be a son. A well-made story, if not precisely to my taste. 3.5 stars

Light Spitter takes us inside the void created when the world shovels its shit into a kid who has no way to say "no, NO, it hurts, NO" so the weight piles in-on-up until a gun answers the taunts. Horrible, horrible cruelty answered by the sneer of ballistic ammunition. Added bonus: Author uses homophobic slur! Lovely. 4 stars

How to Sell A Jacket As Told by IceKing is the continuation of "Friday Black" told by the same narrator a few years down the line. IceKing's still at the top of his game pushing crap onto people who probably don't need it, but time's ticktickticking. No one wants to be trapped in retail forever. It's not my favorite setting or PoV plus it's got a w-bomb in it, so...well...like that. 3 stars

In Retail is the other side of the rivalry from IceKing...not gonna lie, even six pages of it was no fun, I don't think this is the place Author Adjei-Brenyah needs to be setting his focus. Maybe it's all out of his system now? I for one sure hope so. 3 stars because it's not like it's poorly written, I just don't like it.

Through the Flash is the hell of Eternity, the unceasing wretched quotidian repetition of one then another then another cycle of waking, eating, dying...world without end. A future bleaker than any dystopia you've ever read, packed into 27 pages full of the bile of human cruelty, the scalding freeze of knowledge without wisdom, the immutability of lives meant to be impermanent frozen into a rictus of deathlife.

So now we come to the hardest thing for Humanity to bear: Boredom. Not hunger, not violence, not anger. Boredom is the thing that will kill a human being from the inside out. A human will resort to violence and will court anger to escape from the misery, the unending loss, lack, void that is Boredom:

It's very hard at first for some people. But then if you figure that you are infinite, you are supreme and therefore the master of all things, and it's silly to be sad about things like how much your hip is always going to hurt or how you're so old that the flu means a life in bed or how gone forever your mother is.

The film Groundhog Day always seemed to me to be a singularly vicious and cruel torture-porn exercise. But hey, I never thought Don Rickles was funny even as a kid. If I laugh at someone's misfortunes or disabilities, it's because I hate 'em personally. In general it's just not fun or funny to watch someone suffer, especially of boredom.

How did the world come to be so small? How does Ama, our narrator, come to be the sole possessor of life and death in her eternally renewed Inferno? Ama tells us the Water Wars wrought some awful changes on the world we thoughtlessly squandered:

I don't know much about other grids in our state block, because way before the Flash came, the soldier-police—the state-sponsored war-coordination authorities—took away everyone's cars. Their slogan—"For us to serve and protect, you must conserve and respect"—is emblazoned on posters in the school, on the windows of some people's homes. ... Back before the Flash ever came, a lot of people actually loved the SPs. They thought they were keeping us safe. People believe lies, believe anything when they are afraid. That's another thing. Aren't we lucky that before the Flash all the soldier-police were deployed elsewhere?

So the Flash comes, the anomalous great horror of eternal and changeless repetition, and there is absolutely no one to stop the predators from consuming their fill of the prey's agonies.

Author Adjei-Brenyah understands cruelty and despair and the viciousness of the indifferent physics of the Universe far too well for someone who hasn't hit middle age. I'm sad for him. I'm grateful he chose to make his horror into art. I want to read more of his unnervingly precise images and his unpretentious prose before I shuffle off to, well, whatever it is that's next.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

FRIDAY BLACK is hard to explain. The best I can do is say that it's like if BLACK MIRROR imagined a future based on the growing horrors of racism, violence, and capitalism rather than the growing horrors of technology. This collection of stories does what really excellent sci-fi does and explores the present through the future. And yet, I feel like I'm still underselling it. I haven't quite made it clear just how reading this book is kind of like probing at a raw wound with a knife. I had to put it down a few times just to give myself some space. Reading more than one story at a time is an impressive feat of mental strength. This author is one to watch.

[emma]

sometimes you encounter an author's mind that's so one of a kind you're like yeah. i'll read whatever you write

[Samantha Irby · Rating 5 out of 5]

ASTONISHING

[Marchpane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fierce and invigorating, the stories in Friday Black demand attention like a slap in the face.

This collection inhabits the ‘borderlands’ between genres, to borrow a term from Michael Chabon, sort of literary, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, maybe all-of-the-above at the same time. In one story, it’s hard to tell (in a deliberate, clever way) whether the backdrop is a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic wasteland, or just an ordinary shopping mall. Another takes a Groundhog Day scenario to violent extremes, asking how would people really behave if there were zero consequences, every day ending with a reset? Contemporary issues like race, or rampant consumerism, are explored in surreal and/or futuristic settings.

The blend of satire, cultural commentary and high-concept genre entertainment that Adjei-Brenyah employs here brings to mind TV anthology series Black Mirror or the film Get Out. It’s a style perfectly suited to the short story format: each one is a quick, sharp jab that leaves behind a powerful impression quite disproportionate to the time it takes to read. There are no dull moments here, and while a few of the stories were stand-outs, the whole collection is consistently great.

4.5 stars rounded up for sheer gutsiness.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed what these short stories had to say about anti-Black racism and consumerism. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah places us into dystopian worlds and situations that may seem extreme, though they reflect back the injustices in the United States with chilling accuracy. At the same time, I think these stories prioritized novel concepts over deeper character development and exploring characters’ internal worlds, so they weren’t my favorite even though I see their appeal. I agree with what Jessie said in her review about the stories sometimes being sensationalistic without being sensational. I also found the story “Lark Street” pretty anti-abortion and problematic as a result.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Últimamente todos hemos 'comprado' la etiqueta de 'Black Friday' para referirse a una época de rebajas vagamente localizada en noviembre. Originalmente se denominó así al día siguiente de Acción de Gracias (Thanksgiving Day, que siempre se celebra en jueves) y es un término que empezó a emplear la policía para referirse al aluvión de compradores y circulación que se producía con el inicio de las compras navideñas.

Por otro lado, el viernes siempre está asociado al terror en la tradición anglosajona, así que Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ha tomado el término en su sentido literal y en estas historias ha logrado mezclar el consumismo, el terror y una crítica al racismo. Es una tendencia actual de los autores afroamericanos a usar el género del terror para hablar sobre racismo, lo cual tiene lógica ya que el racismo es fundamentalmente miedo al otro, por parte del que excluye, y también terror por parte del que se siente excluido. Estoy pensando por ejemplo en películas de Jordan Peele como Nosotros o Get out y algunos episodios de su versión de The Twilight Zone. También la estupenda serie Them que sigue a una pareja afroamericana que se muda a un distrito blanco en la California de los años 50.

Las historias que más me han gustado han sido las de las ventas en las grandes superficies, narradas desde el punto de vista del vendedor, que contempla la lucha de los consumidores - con muertos y heridos - para hacerse con las prendas deseadas, con las que esperan conseguir el amor y la aceptación. Es una alegoría sangrienta de la sociedad de consumo y del miedo al rechazo en una Norteamérica distópica pero no mucho, más cercana de lo deseable.

El tema del rechazo social y sus consecuencias también está presente en relatos como Escupidor de luz donde un adolescente armado planea una matanza en su colegio, que es un tema tristemente actual, aunque tratado con un toque fantástico.

Quizá los relatos más impactantes versan sobre la violencia que se ejerce contra los negros, como Los cinco de Finkelstein o Zimmerlandia que es un parque temático donde la violencia racial se convierte en un juego.

En conjunto doce buenos relatos, perturbadores y bastante originales. 3,75*

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this excellent and powerful collection of stories about being young and Black (presumably) in America. This had a muddled timeframe and a very dystopian feel. I place most of these stories in the very near future. A couple of the stories had fantastical and/or scifi elements, but most were social commentary. Adjeh-Brenyah's imagination is large and he is doing something very interesting: he is extrapolating to extreme interpretations of our current society (American) from the perspective of a Black man. His near future is somewhat humorous and a little bleak; but then (in my view) so is the present…

Summary

The Finklestein 5 - Short story packed a wallop. Systemic racism does not hold a man who murdered 5 black children accountable. Social justice forms a cult of people that start to indiscriminately murder folks in the name of those children. The ending is... typical. MC prevents an assault on a white couple and the police mistake him as the assailant and shoot first."

Things My Mother Said - Very short vignette about a very poor boy thinking of his mother and her support."

The Era - a near future speculative story about a society that is medicated and babies are designed. One of the children that was just normal get inducted into a cult of people who do not subscribe to being medicated or designer babies. I liked it alot."

Lark Street - a young couple who were not ready for kids choose to not have the kids, then a guilt ridden imagination starts to take hold where the father imagines the kids are born and communicating with him. Not scary, basically they kids were the embodiment of second thoughts. Another one that I liked."

The Hospital Where - A young writer's father is admitted to a hospital where his muse is a 12 tongued god. Weird but good..."

Zimmer Land - a social justice amusement park w/ decidedly white nationalist undertones. Creative and creepy..."

Friday Black - a rather dystopian view of Black Friday and the in store workers witin..."

The Lion and the Spider - a little book of African folklore mixed in with a day in the life of a loading dock worker. His future is viewed through the lens of Anansi folklore and the race uphill with a lion."

Lightsitter - good vs evil? Nature vs nurture? Idk. Need to reread this one..."

How to Sell a Jacket As Told By Iceking - An inner monolog of a retail salesclerk who excels at his job."

In Retail - Sort of a follow up to "How to Sell a Jacket..." but from the point of view of another clerk in the same store. She is pondering the environment after one of the mall workers kills herself."

The Flash - A rather horrific, dystopian groundhog day. I was reminded of Iain M. Bank's (Surface Detail) concept of virtual hell. Bizarre..."

I liked the front half of the book much more than the back half. My favorites were: "The Finklestein 5", "The Era", "Zimmer Land" and "Lark Street". " Zimmer Land" and the notion of a social justice amusement park was genius! Adjeh-Brenyah's intelligence, imagination and humor all shine in this collection. There was a creeping feeling that I am growing old as I read this. A lot of the very clever writing and social commentary by young authors has me a little vexed at times. Occasionally the irony, symbolism and meaning went past me; my jaded, lived experience blinding me to the canny and smart observations and reflections. Clever commentary through the eyes of retail sales staff doesn't resonate with me likely because those experiences were decades ago. I guess what I am saying is that I was impressed, but not amazed by this book and I'm blaming the notion that its youthful appeal is wasted on this middle-aged lady.

4 Stars

Listened to the audiobook. It connected me very well for some of the stories and disconnected me from others. The narration by Carra Patterson and Corey Allen is excellent!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most short story collections, Friday Black has its highs and its lows, and on the whole I’d say it lands somewhere in the middle. But that’s not to dismiss Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s skill at dark, grotesque speculative fiction, which is on full display in a number of these stories, from the harrowing opener The Finkelstein 5 (a man brutally murders 5 black children with a chainsaw and claims self-defense) to the devastating Zimmer Land (a Westworld-style themepark where participants play out fantasies in which they defend their families by murdering intruders).

However, from an opening that promised thematic cohesion (at least where the first three stories were concerned – all playing with the tension between inward identity and outward emotion), it started to flounder a bit. The Hospital Where introduces huge ideas and never really follows through. Three stories make the exact same point about consumerism, begging the question of why they were all necessary to include. The final story, Through the Flash, drags on and on while getting less interesting the further it goes.

My average rating for these 12 stories is 3.25, so 3 stars it is, but I do want to stress that I did enjoy this collection. I think Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is one of the most exciting, daring new voices I’ve read in fiction all year. This is a searing, unapologetic collection about violence and black identity and capitalism, and how inextricable those themes are. I’d ultimately recommend giving this collection a shot if it interests you, but if you’re just interested in reading one story from it, make it The Finkelstein 5.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a story makes you cry three pages in, you know you're reading something special. 'The Finkelstein 5', the first short story in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut collection, is astounding. It follows a young man named Emmanuel as he prepares for a job interview, taking steps (modifying his voice, wearing smart clothes, smiling and being constantly polite) to ensure his Blackness is dialled down as far as possible. He's happy about the interview, but 'he also felt guilty about feeling happy about anything. Most people he knew were still mourning the Finkelstein verdict'. A white man has been found not guilty of any wrongdoing in using a chainsaw to decapitate five black children outside the Finkelstein Library. He claims he was protecting his children. The controversial verdict sparks violent protests by groups known as 'Namers', and on his way to the interview, Emmanuel meets an old friend who is keen to act.

This story is ferocious satire, but it's only a hair's breadth from the truth. In the wake of the death of Trayvon Martin and other similar cases, it really isn't that hard to imagine this actually happening. Emmanuel's awareness and regulation of his Blackness is a brilliant articulation of something that will be immediately recognisable to so many – a tactic painfully familiar to anyone who's ever been part of any sort of minority.

Nothing else in the book got to me quite like 'The Finkelstein 5', but it's consistently both enjoyable and biting. 'Zimmer Land' is another standout – George Saunders by way of Black Mirror. The narrator works at a theme park where 'patrons' can role-play a scenario in which they are attacked by, and ultimately 'kill', a black assailant. A trio of stories – 'Friday Black', 'How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing', and 'In Retail' – are set at the Prominent Mall and centre on the day-to-day lives of retail workers. Like 'The Finkelstein 5', 'Friday Black' takes reality and stretches it a little out of shape: the stampedes that accompany Black Friday routinely result in multiple deaths (129 last year); customers speak in a garbled language only Black Friday veterans can understand.

The collection isn't perfect. 'Lark Street' and 'Light Spitter' both feel like ambitious experiments that don't quite come off. The first is about a man who is haunted by the foetuses his girlriend aborted; the second has a school shooter and his victim teaming up – as ghosts – to try and make things right. I really enjoyed 'Through the Flash', in which a community is trapped in a repeating version of the same day, but like a few of the others it could've done with either editing down or expanding to novel length. Sometimes the concepts are too big for the short-story format.

Friday Black is a collection that pulses with ideas and indignation. It incorporates elements of science fiction and magical realism but still has much to say about our lives now. 'The Finkelstein 5' in particular is one of those stories I will never forget.

I received an advance review copy of Friday Black from the publisher through NetGalley.

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[ij · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my cuppa.

[leynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy fuck! Everyone who loves Black Mirror will certainly find some stories to absolutely geek out and gush over in this collection. Friday Black is a brilliant and fresh piece of work, that encompasses 12 thought-provoking short stories. Whilst I found some of them to be subpar (and my average rating of these stories is 3.41), I couldn’t help but be incredibly impressed by this debut collection.

A third of these stories got a 5 star rating from me, that is almost unheard of when it comes to me and short story collections. I am shooketh to my core, especially The Finkelstein 5 and How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing blew my fucking socks off and should be read by everyone.

I was expecting a moving collection of stories focusing on the topics of racism and what it means to be Black in modern day the United States (Roxane Gay fittingly said that everyone who enjoys Childish Gambino’s This Is America will certainly enjoy Adjei-Brenyah’s work). Friday Black, however, is so much more than that. It features many sci-fi and futuristic elements. Adjei-Brenyah lays out a chilling dystopia for our future, one in which consumerism and capitalism have taken its toll on people, literally making them into shallow shells; a future in which racism is handled as a game to be played as leisure.

And even though I didn’t like all of the stories, I cannot deny that they were all cleverly written. Adjei-Brenyah has a gift for wiring in an effortless way. You will literally fly through this collection and be kept on your toes by compelling and thought-provoking ideas presented in these stories.

The Finkelstein 5 was by far my favorite story in this collection. The protagonist lives in a world in which his Blackness is measured on a 1-10 scale. The way he speaks, the choices he makes in regards to his wardrobe, the people he chooses to hang out with … everything is measured on that scale. Initially, the protagonist tries to keep his “score” as low as possible in hopes of a better job and to not get scrutinised in people, but when the killer of five innocent Black children is acquitted and rioters hit the street, he cannot help himself and finds himself amidst a mob hunting for revenge and blood. It is such a chilling story that will resonate with everyone who has been paying attention to the news lately. Adjei-Brenyah keeps it interesting by not going for the predictable black-and-white route (aka: good versus bad), the protagonist is morally grey, the choices he makes may be understandable but they are still bad choices. I cannot stop thinking about it. Please, read it now!

Things My Mother Said is only two pages long and functions as a sort of love letter to his mother. Albeit it is short and kept very simple, the last lines truly resonated with me: “For the record, I know I was lucky, I know I am lucky, I don’t think you’re stupid, I know I am not your friend, I hope you can be proud of me.” There is something so incredibly human and touching about those last lines, they really evoke the feelings I have towards my parents.

The Era displays a chilling futuristic setting in which human beings are ranked by their “usefulness” to society. “Clear-birth” children aren’t worth much as opposed to genetically modified babies who are designed to excel at certain areas in life. Similarly to Brave New World, everyone is kept happy by a drug called “Good”. I thought the juxtaposition between the “old way” (as we know it) and this futuristic setting was a little clunky and predictable (along the lines of “everything used to be better”) but apart from that I could see this narrative being turned into a compelling Black Mirror episode.

Lark Street was one of the worst stories in here and the only one that I find somewhat problematic. In it, Adjei-Brenyah discussed the aftermath of an abortion in a truly silly and manipulative way, by making the aborted fetus come to live to haunt their parents. I get that abortion is a complex topic and the emotional toll it can take on couples to go down that route can be a topic of interest, however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this story served as a criticism in regards to abortion, because Adjei-Brenyah always referred to the act as “murder”, which is absolute bullshit and something I 100% do not endorse.

The Hospital Where is another one of the weaker stories in here. I really can’t tell you much about it because I didn’t get it at all. It was about a man who accompanied his father to the hospital, then started worshipping a weird deity and in the end rid all of the patients from their illness. It was hella weird and I got no meaning out of it.

Zimmer Land, however, was one of the strongest stories in this collection. It had me at the edge of my seat and made me feel so outraged. It is probably the story that will get people talking the most, as in it a future is shown in which racism can be exercised as a sport in a simulation. It shows the life of a Black man who works at such a simulation park, white people come there every day to shoot him down for fun. It is a chilling story that displays a lot of race hatred that could be potentially triggering to people. It is the most “relevant” story, if you want to call it that, because important questions surrounding the stand-your-ground law, gun policies and the passing on of racist ideas to one’s children are raised.

Friday Black is an exaggerated tale about the blatant consumerism in our society, depicting the work day of a shop assistant on Black Friday. And whilst it is exaggerated depicting shoppers as monsters without a conscience who are ravenous and cannot stop buying things, it is a fact that people have actually died and been severely injured in the United States due to Black Friday Sales. It’s a story that will make you squirm.

The Lion & the Spider is a short story that juxtaposes the life of a young boy who has to care for his family after his father left them and the fable of the spider and the lion. It shows what it takes to get “to the mountain top” and find your own way. I think the idea behind this story is very clever, personally though, I didn’t do anything for me and I found it quite forgettable.

Light Spitter is another very timely story as it deals with the reality of school shootings and the rampant bullying that persists in American schools today. I appreciate the importance of this story, however, I didn’t find the fantastical element (the souls of the shooter who killed himself and the soul of his victim come alive and try to reform another possible school shooter) that compelling. Oddly enough, it was the only story in this collection that felt rather cheesy, since it showed the way in which to deal with someone who was bullied and is thus desperate in a very over-simplified way.

How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing is an absolute brilliant story, that functions as an addition to the previous story Friday Black. In it, we follow the same shop assistant and his life at the fashion store. This time, however, there’s a new vendor in the game who tries to usurp his place as the most successful salesman of the store. The reason I loved this story so much is the fact that you can tell that Adjei-Brenyah dealt at retail before. The sarcastic yet realistic way in which he details how retailers manipulate their costumers into buying shit was absolutely hilarious to read about. It was the story that made me laugh the most because it was so true.

In Retail can almost be read as a plea for more kindness when it comes to speaking to salesmen. In it, Adjei-Brenyah gives voice to those people who are brought to the brink of desperation because they are treated like shit on a daily basis and can’t do nothing about, if they don’t want to be fired. Adjei-Brenyah does this very cleverly by showing the reader the case of a girl who committed suicide because she couldn’t take it anymore, and an endearing snippet out of another retailer’s day as he has a fun time helping a Spanish costumer find clothes for her grandchildren. Be kind, people, it’s not that hard.

Through the Flash is one of the best futuristic stories in this collection. It displays a future in which humanity is stuck in a loop. Our protagonist will forever be 14 years old and she cannot die, as her day will just start all over again when she is killed. The reason why life in this loop is so dangerous is the fact that every person only has one trait/desire that is extremely present in their personality. Our protagonist’s father, for instance, wants nothing more than murdering his daughter, whilst her brother has become a genius. I thought it was incredible how the world was so vividly constructed within a few pages and the search of meaning in a meaningless world was explored. Absolutely brilliant!

[Read By RodKelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

With all of the high praise this collection has received, I was very excited to read it. Overall, I enjoyed it even though I wasn't expecting speculative fiction, a genre that often leaves me cold and unsatisfied. The standouts in the collection are The Finkelstein 5, Zimmer Land, How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing, and Friday Black, which is an utterly brilliant story and deservedly gives the book it's title. The rest had no effect on me whatsoever beyond being cleverly written.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forget where I first heard of Adjei-Brenyah, but the name of his debut story collection was so similar to Esi Edugyan’s much-lauded Washington Black that I wanted to read both to make sure they were separated in my mind. Now it is difficult to imagine I would ever forget the title story “Friday Black,” about a young man in a retail store setting dealing with the sales and buying mania of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the official opening of the Christmas season. There is indeed something black in the American psyche, that would celebrate a day of such whipped-up and fruitless passion for more than we need or can effectively use.

I did not read the first story in the collection, “The Finkelstein 5,” until long into my perusal of the collection. Just as well, because it is a staring full-face into the racism we still see and hear all around us today. The characters who are black adjust themselves to fit into the white overculture, adjusting their “blackness” on a ten-point scale.

Adjei-Brenyah draws from the incidental murders of young girls attending Sunday school, of a young man shot as he walked down the night-darkened street of his neighborhood, of a young man so angry at the deaths of the others that he considers, for a moment, fighting back. There is a barely-disguised cameo of the talking heads on right-wing TV talk shows, with Adjei-Brenyah carefully picking out for us the most offensive and patently absurd of their comments regarding white fear of unarmed teens and children of color.

My favorite of the stories in the collection has to be “Zimmer Land.” In this significant piece, which I can imagine being chosen for Best-Of collections until Adjei-Brenyah is old and gray, a young man works at a kind of play-station where members of the community are given the opportunity to see how they would react when their fear or anger instincts are aroused.

Patrons are issued a weapon when they enter the play space set, a paint gun whose force can rupture fake blood sensors in the mecha-suit of the player. Mecha-suits sound like transformer kits, inflating to protect the torso, legs, and arms of players, and to intimidate. Patrons are not told to use the weapons, but the mere convenience of the weapons is an opportunity, and the rush of shooting is like a fast-acting drug.

Isaiah is black and he is the player white patrons come to test their emotions against in a “highly curated environment.” When Isaiah complains to management that most of the patrons are repeats, coming frequently to fake-kill him and not learning anything new about the sources of their aggression, perhaps even “equating killing with justice,” his bosses tell him his heart better be in the job ‘cause there are others who’ll do the work with real aggression and commitment.

At least four of Adjei-Brenyah’s signature pieces in this collection describe the soul-destroying unreality of America’s retail space, where salespeople are rewarded for up-selling and given praise, if not bonuses, for selling the most [unnecessary] stuff to the most [vulnerable] people. We are reminded that there are several ways to make money to live while writing, and in Adjei-Brenyah’s case it is retail sales rather than, say, restaurant work or construction. He gives us a look at what we never thought to ask as we made our way through the racks of shirts or stacks of jeans.

Highly praised by other acclaimed writers in front-page and back-cover blurbs, this collection heralds the arrival of someone we will continue to look out for. The ideas behind the work is what is impressive, besides just the writing skill. Adjei-Brenyah knows one doesn’t have to be sky-diving to make the work interesting. It’s about what you’re thinking about while sky-diving.

Late Night comedian Seth Meyers interviews Adjei-Brenyah and
Book Riot interviews Adjei-Brenyah here.

[Repix Pix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relatos de capitalismo, racismo y violencia.
Una prosa poderosa y oscura.

[Berengaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

short review for busy readers:
An early short story collection from the author of Chain-Gang All-Stars. No theme or unifying idea connects the stories, some of which are so confusing or ambivalent in approach it's hard to know what the point is. A handful are real stunners, but I found I didn't enjoy the collection very much overall despite the quality of writing.

in detail:

The Finkelstein 5: 5 stars. *Best in Show*. Once again, a white perp kills black kids and gets off scot free. The black members of the community radicalise and start randomly killing white people in revenge. Excellent social commentary.

Things My Mother Said: 4 stars. A nice flash piece about appreciating what one has.

The Era: 3.5 stars. Futuristic tale of a time when total and brutal honesty is the norm. A "cult of yesteryear" springs up, attempting to practice again the type of insincere, but empathetic, lies Americans are known for the world over.

Lark Street: 2.5 stars. Off-putting story of a home abortion from the father's perspective. Could be read as a pro-life/anti-abortion story, but also about how young people are old enough to understand the emotional resonance of parenthood, but not cope with the responsibility.

The Hospital Where: 2 stars. A young man accompanies his father to a Kafkaesque hospital where the father's to see a specialist, but nobody seems to know anything. Hard to see a point with this one.

Zimmer Land: 3.5 stars. A type of amusement park where people are put into "dangerous, real life situations" in order to teach them about justice and responsibility. Noble, except most of its repeat customers are middle aged white men who enjoy proxy killing black men. A black actor at the park questions if he's actually helping society by working there. Interesting idea, but fails to achieve much depth, possibly due to the love story angle.

Friday Black: 4 stars. The zombie apocalypse that is Black Friday mall sales told by a veteran salesman with the nickname "Ice King" because he's so cool under pressure. 2nd best of the collection!

The Lion & The Spider: 3.5 stars. Dads are sometimes dicks who abandon you, but you have to allow them their quirks. They're just trying to help you become a man, African style. (Really?)

Light Spitter: 1 star. Disjointed, awkward story that wants to explore the mentality behind school shootings, but misses terribly.

How to Sell a Jacket as Told by Ice King: 3.5 stars. Another enjoyable Ice King story about how ambitious co-workers can and will steal your customers/sales and get away with it.

In Retail: 5 stars. Lovely. A moving Ice King piece about a charming customer. Una camisa roja, dude, not rojo!

Through the Flash: 4 stars. An interesting, if gross, take on how people stuck in a "Groundhog's Day" type time loop on the day of nuclear holocaust react to the knowledge they're going to die that afternoon again and again and again and again. (This story needs trigger warnings)

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4+] These stories straddle the boundary between dystopian and realistic and are terrifying because of the truths they lay bare. Several of Adjei-Brenyah's stories are narrated by retail workers in big box stores who find ways to take pride in their jobs. They are placed in violent situations but try their best to survive and take care of their families in spite of the racism and cruelty they face. A totally original collection that I won't soon forget.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

From what I’d read about this book, I thought I’d love it. But I ended up not getting very much out of the stories. Ten of the 12 are told in the first person, and in most cases you get the point after one or two pages and the remaining pages are like a puddle of treacle to crawl through. I think I would have enjoyed coming across one of Adjei-Brenyah’s stories in an anthology – the opener, “The Finkelstein 5,” was probably my favorite and is a good example of how he takes the comedy/horror thing right over the top – but many of the others did not resonate with me, or simply felt like more of the same. Read this if you truly loved Paul Beatty’s The Sellout.

[Gerhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Capitalism as satire’ is a time-honoured trope in SF, from the seminal ‘The Space Merchants’ (1952) by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth to ‘Finna’ (2020) by Nino Cipri. ‘Friday Black’ reminded me a lot of the particular kind of non-SF satire perfected by George Saunders, but there is an uncomfortable mix of violence and race politics completely missing from the more sanitised visions of Saunders.

The opening story, ‘The Finkelstein 5’, is by far the flashiest, and is so good the rest of the collection, unfortunately, pales in comparison. The titular ‘Friday Black’, however, succeeds in outdoing the violence quotient, but its impact is diluted by having another couple of rather weak stories tagged on featuring the same character.

‘Light Splitter’ is a particularly distasteful story about a school shooter told from the POV of the protagonist. Thank heavens then for the closing story, ‘Through the Flash’, which for me is the best and most disturbing of the lot. It is also the most subtle, not difficult given the generally broad (and extremely bloody) brush strokes of these dystopian scenarios.

So, kind of hit-and-miss for me. But the potential is clearly there, and I read this particularly in preparation for Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel. A niggling criticism is that there is little humour, which makes a pretty dour collection to begin with all the more heavy-handed.

[Matt Quann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just missed sneaking this one under the wire for my last read of 2018, but it also happens to be a fine way to start the new year. These stories are (mostly) dystopian sci-fi, but think more George Saunders than Margaret Atwood. Like Saunders, Adjei-Brenyah has a dark sense of humour and a clever way of looking at the problems facing the modern American. The stories feature some pretty gruesome and shocking violence, but the book never relishes in the bloodshed and it always packs a punch. Friday Black contains great stories, a great new voice, and happens to be a slim readable collection. A lovely Christmas gift from my wife and I'm definitely on-board for whatever Adjei-Brenyah has up next.

[4.5 Stars]

[Gafas y Ojeras · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es terrible contemplar como la realidad cotidiana es más aterradora que cualquiera de las novelas que nos llevamos a la oscuridad de nuestro dormitorio. Historias que estremecen por que las sientes, porque giras la cabeza para huir del monstruo, porque cierras los ojos al mirarte al espejo y encarar al villano.
Este libro del debutante Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah nos ofrece una demoledora dosis de realidad. De esa que nos indigna mientras saboreamos un vino durante la cena y que desaparecéra tras tomarnos el postre. Kwame es consciente de que sus historias no llegarán al gran público salvo que se disfrace, como algún que otro personaje de los que abundan en sus relatos. Y para lograrlo se pone los ropajes del exceso, llenando sus historias de instantes extremadamente violentos, macabros, saboreando la dulzura de la sangre en los momentos cargados de gore hasta hacer que el lector se divierta por su excesiva propuesta y baje la guardia ante lo que realmente nos está narrando.
Porque tras ese camino del exceso, el autor comienza a analizar los terribles problemas orgánicos que abanderan una sociedad que hace tiempo dejó de ser funcional. A lo largo de sus doce impactantes relatos, Kwame nos pone en bandeja los problemas económicos, sanitarios, laborales, paterno filiares, ataca sin piedad al consumo desmesurado, a asumir la responsabilidad de tus actos y, por encima de todo, tiñe cada uno de sus relatos de negro.
Y es que el racismo llena cada una de las páginas de este libro desde su propio y revelador título. Lo hace mostrándolo sin tapujos, gritándote a la cara una realidad que nos empeñamos en negar. Lo hace desde la indignación, desde el objetivo de lo cotidiano. Usando puñetazos directos como Los cinco de Finkelstein o A través del destello o, al contrario, sirviéndose de la sutileza en relatos tan demoledores de la talla de Como vender una chaqueta según el Rey Hielo.
Y es que me cuesta mucho quedarme con alguno de estos relatos. Todos, o casi todos, rozan la excelencia. Quizás La calle Lark ande un tanto desubicado como sus propios personajes dentro del libro. Pero eso no hace más que constatar que el desborde de imaginación que usa Kwame en sus narraciones lo convierte en un autor a seguir.
Quizás te incomode llenarte las manos con las tripas que se derraman al pasar a la siguiente página del libro pero lo único que hace el autor en esta obra es mostrarte una realidad que no quieres ver. Aunque para ello tenga que disfrazarse del negro que tú quieres delante.

[Deborah Dixon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Given the media coverage of this collection of short stories, I came in expecting a revolutionary dissection of being black in America. The first story did not disappoint. As for the rest...

One of the early stories quickly identifies itself as a takedown of autism. Look, we catch enough flak daily, okay? Authors form a part of the entertainment sector, and especially in these days it is important to be conscientious with your storytelling, cognizant of how your art is going to impact others. I expect this story to be wielded by black neurotypicals as yet another weapon in black autism—a community that is even less understood and more marginalized. This was completely irresponsible writing on behalf of the author; it is a story that has no reason to exist except to belittle people who are already belittled.

Despite my misgivings, I gave the book another chance, and was treated to the most blatant anti-abortion propaganda I’ve ever seen this side of the racial divide. At that, I decided I’d had enough.

After all, why should I care about writing that doesn’t care one whit about me?

[Shey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection that presents the darker aspects of humanity in an elegantly curated manner. With his uniquely clever ideas, Adjei-Brenyah showcases twelve short stories with various themes related to violence, race, redemption, parenthood, and consumerism. While a few stories pale in comparison to others, I was impressed and surprised by the majority of them. This is my first encounter with a collection featuring mixed and overlapping genres, yet most of it manages to effectively convey its message. In one story, it weaves magical realism into the topic of abortion, while another takes on speculative fiction to address injustice. In a couple of stories, it's a dystopian future that normalizes insults, bullying, and eventually murder and violence, while another story tackles the Black Friday sale but with zombies. These tales are dark and often funny, and I'm adding this book to my list of unique reading experiences.