The Days of Afrekete

by Asali Solomon

From award-winning author Asali Solomon, The Days of Afrekete is a tender, surprising novel of two women at midlife who rediscover themselves--and perhaps each other, inspired by Mrs. Dalloway, Sula, and Audre Lorde's Zami

Liselle Belmont is having a dinner party.

It seems a strange occasion--her husband, Winn, has lost his bid for the state legislature--but what better way to thank key supporters than a feast? Liselle was never sure about her husband becoming a politician, never sure about the limelight, never sure about the life of fundraising and stump speeches. Then an FBI agent calls to warn her that Winn might be facing corruption charges. An avalanche of questions tumbles around her: Is it possible he's guilty? Who are they to each other; who have they become? How much of herself has she lost--and was it worth it? And just this minute, how will she make it through this dinner party?

Across town, Selena Octave is making her way through the same day, the same way she always does--one foot in front of the other, keeping quiet and focused, trying not to see the terrors all around her. Homelessness, starving children, the very living horrors of history that made America possible: these and other thoughts have made it difficult for her to live an easy life. The only time she was ever really happy was with Liselle, back in college. But they've lost touch, so much so that when they ran into each other at a drugstore just after Obama was elected president, they barely spoke. But as the day wears on, memories of Liselle begin to shift Selena's path.

Inspired by Mrs. Dalloway and Sula, as well as Audre Lorde's Zami, Asali Solomon's The Days of Afrekete is a deft, expertly layered, naturally funny, and deeply human examination of two women coming back to themselves at midlife. It is a watchful celebration of our choices and where they take us, the people who change us, and how we can reimagine ourselves even when our lives seem set.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Contemporary, Queer, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Lesbian

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 19, 2021

About the author

Asali Solomon was born and raised in West Philadelphia. Her first book, a collection of stories entitled Get Down, is set mostly in Philadelphia. Solomon's work has been featured in Vibe, Essence, and the anthology Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Lips and Other Parts. She has a PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA form the Iowa's Writer Workshop in fiction. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and is on the short list for this year's Hurston/Wright Literary Award for best new fiction.

The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award 2007 nominees include ASALI SOLOMON for her collection of short stories, Get Down published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2006.

She also was named one of the National Book foundation's '5 Under 35 in 2007.

(from http://aalbc.com/authors/asali_solomo...)

Reviews

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

/ / / Read more reviews on my blog / / /

“There was so much lying all the time, particularly when you got together with people who were not Black. Bland observations about about schools, neighborhoods, and the words “kids” and “safe” and “family” tried to cover up a landscape of volcanos oozing with blood, pus, and shit.”

What drew my attention to The Days of Afrekete was the comparison to Sula, a novel that, even years after reading it, I still think about. Alas, The Days of Afrekete is not quite in the same league as Morrison's novel. Structure and story-wise The Days of Afrekete shares far more, if not too much, in common with Elif Shafak's Three Daughters of Eve. Like Shafak's novel The Days of Afrekete alternates between scenes set during the course of a dinner party and scenes exploring our main character's past, focusing in particular on her college experience. Both works are also characterized by an ironic tone, poking fun at the pretences of the upper/middle classes and highlighting just how hypocritical the characters they are writing of are. Alas, even if I wasn't a huge fan of Shafak's novel I still preferred her brand of satire to Asali Solomon's one.

Liselle Belmont, our novel's central character, is enjoying a life of relative wealth. She's married to and has a son with Winn, a white man whose political career has just taken a turn for the worst. An FBI agent has recently reached out to Liselle and implied that he has done something shady and may be prosecuted. Winn, seeming to be unaware that the FBI is onto him, decides to invite some of his friends/supporters over for dinner.
The narrative shows how adjusted Liselle has become to this lifestyle. She is incapable and or unwilling to pronounce correctly the name of her employee, Xochitl, who does things like welcoming the guests, serving the food, and cleaning after them. We also learn that although she had the opportunity to help Jimena, Xochit's mother who also works for her, she chooses not to.
As this awkward dinner unfolds, the narrative takes us back to Liselle's college years. At college she started dating women but soon found herself frustrated by the almost-exclusively white dating pool. She repeatedly promises herself that she will stop sleeping or entertaining in relationships with white girls. She then meets Selena, one of the few other Black students, and the two seem to be instantly drawn to each other. Their relationship doesn't end smoothly as Liselle has a rather crappy attitude and Selena is struggling with her mental health. We later learn of how Liselle met and started dating Winn.

The story portrays Winn and his guests in a rather unfavourable light, but it does so in a way that reduces them to rather one-dimensional caricatures. Lisette was mean, uncharitable, and selfish. Selena's character, especially her illness, was a tad problematic. She 'feels' things too much, so when she reads or sees stories about murder, slavery, cruelty, she is unable to distance herself from those events. Over the course of her adulthood, she is in and out of psychiatric wards and has only in recent times begun to lead a more 'adjusted' life.

While I did find the narrative amusing now and again, I felt nothing for Lisette or the other characters. It wasn’t necessarily because they were unlikable. After all, I just read and loved White Ivy, a novel that seems entirely populated by flawed, if not downright terrible, people. But the characters in The Days of Afrekete are just not as nuanced or compelling as the ones from White Ivy. Solomon's examination of class and privilege too struck me as somewhat banal compared to Susie Yang's one in White Ivy.
Sula does get a mention in this novel and the narrative does focus on the supposedly complex relationship between two Black women but other than that this novel is galaxies away from Morrison's one. Lisette and Selena's relationship feels rushed, so we never gain a picture of how they are together or what they feel for each other. Yet, during the dinner Lisette keeps thinking about her, making it sound as if she was 'the one' for her...to me it seemed that she never really liked Winn and that she only married him because of 'reasons'. Knowing that the guy is about to be arrested she is like 'well he sucks' and for 'reasons' she misses Selena.

Even if I were to judge this book on its own merit (without comparing it unfavourably to Sula, White Ivy, and Shafak's novel) I don't have many good things to say about it. As I wrote above, it was occasionally funny. We get on-point descriptions like: "He had the look of someone who had aged out of playing the rich jerk in an eighties teen movie".
But the characters were severely lacking in depth. Liselle's story was boring, I didn't really feel particularly sympathetic towards her, and I did not really care about the 'drama' with Winn or their awful dinner party.
We only get Selena's side of things towards the end of the story and by then I was ready to be done with this book.
The way Liselle's sexuality is portrayed frustrated me. She 'was' a lesbian but she's no longer one now because she is with Winn. I also didn't like the flashbacks that show how Winn pursued her even when he knew she was gay. And instead of turning him down, she decides to roll with it? I just didn't believe that she cared for him so I had a really hard time understanding why she marries this bland guy. Also, why are the only two sexualities in this novel 'gay' or 'straight'? Sexuality is not binary and I always find it irritating to come across stories in which a character had a 'gay' phase or 'used' to be gay. Being queer, bisexual, or pansexual is apparently not an option in these novels.

I wouldn't necessarily not recommend this novel as I recognise that some may find Liselle less irritating than I did. Just don't let that Sula comparison fool you.

ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Sunny Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black lesbian in Philly goes to Bryn Mawr but later in life marries a white man lawyer aspiring politician lmfaooooo

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t enjoy this and kept reading only because it was so short. I regret that I didn’t stop when I first had the impulse to do so. Liselle was so cold, self-absorbed and unpleasant I couldn’t think of any plausible reason why Winn would have married her. He will regret it. I don’t really want to think about this book enough to write a review. It definitely was not for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Monte Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

If not for the Audible sale I probably never would have even heard about this book, so shoutout to that 2 books 1 credit deal. There might be a few hours left as of the posting of this review so if you use Audible, might want to head over there.

I went into this book thinking it was going to be us following this woman, Liselle, as she deals with the idea of her husband being under investigation for something he did wrong on his campaign. Honestly after The Art of Scandal I was definitely a little interested in seeing what else could be done with that kind of an idea, only not in a romance this time.

Only in a way it was kind of romantic?

It's also told in two perspectives, Liselle the woman who is watching as her marriage reaches a turning point and how she even found herself married to this man in the first place.

But also that of Selena, a woman she met in her college years. They had a romance the burned bright and toxic and each of them have carried that with them as their paths eventually diverted. Though neither of them have fully let the other go and have independently started to migrate back toward one another.

It's a novel that feels a little like a Novella. In some ways the ending is unsatisfying in a way that good books can be. It's not the most revolutionary text I've read, in that I don't think Solomon does something I've never seen but I do think that each of the women feel carefully crafted in a lovingly realistic way. Liselle especially is the kind of complex character I am always looking to find.

I wish that the book was longer, but it's brevity feels intentional and while Solomon doesn't have the worlds most extensive backlist I am eager to see what else they've written and will continue to wait for them to come out with something new.

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop · Rating 2 out of 5]

The host of a dinner party, Liselle, reminiscences about a very brief collegiate affair with Selena and pines for those blissful but emotionally packed days with the one she considers her true love. The majority of the book is centered on Liselle’s preparation and suffering through this rather dismal party to address her husband’s lost political campaign with a few of his key (and very eccentric) donors and supporters.

This is a character-driven novel and unfortunately, it did not work for me. I was not captivated by the plot/story or interested in the characters -- it was one in which I kept reading only to get through the book to write a fair review. Sadly, Liselle’s choices and “trials” just weren’t compelling enough for me to become vested in her story. Selena seemed a tad bit more interesting, but the story was a bit lopsided in that more time was spent with Liselle early in the novel. Selena’s story came much later and by then I was ready for the novel to end.

Perhaps others will enjoy or appreciate this offering more than I did. It’s not a “bad” story, it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since race is such a popular subject these days and there are so many books about it, it has become abundantly clear that there is a right and wrong way to write about race. The Days of Afrekete gets it exactly right. It features racial (and sexual and socioeconomic and class and income) diversity and definitely has a message, but never lets it overpower the actual story.
But first and foremost, for me this was a story about choices. We meet the protagonist, Liselle, at a party, thrown for a not so happy occasion of her spouse’s thwarted political ambitions, the situation that is compounded by the fact that he may also be under an FBI investigation. The progressive diverse cast of supporting characters are saying all the right things, but Liselle’s mind is drifting back in time, to her college years, to the woman she loved, to the strange turns her life has taken to bring her to the now she’s in.
Back in her college days Liselle was a player, sleeping her way through attractive female coeds, but the one that really got her was Selena. Their brief affair left an indelible mark on Liselle’s soul. It might have been a personal high, after which life has slowly and strangely tumbled in unpredictable directions, ending up married to a man, a white man, no less.
And then the novel pivots to show you what became of Selena in the intervening years. So really, it covers a lot for being just over 200 pages. And where it excels is at just showing how different life turns out from what one might have hoped or dreamed about and how far you can go from love to find yourself.
And then, of course, there’s the racial commentary, done cleverly and subtly. Because for all the difference it implies, it is only one of the many factors that go into relationships. Plus the author makes it work every which way, from Liselle’s biracial marriage to Liselle’s interactions with her Latina maid, it’s all in the nuances and it’s very well done.
I found the Liselle/Selena romance/connection to be somewhat underdone, it seemed abrupt and undeveloped for something that meant so much to both of them. But overall enjoyed reading it, the writing was really good, first rate character development too, it played like a well done A list cast indie drama. Lus it’s always nice when an author manages to tell a story succinctly. And to honor that, this review is getting wrapped up, so…Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/

[Mitch Loflin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has everything I need. There's a claustrophobic gay college drama, a tense dinner party against a backdrop of possible crime, thoughtful introspection, complicated romantic entanglements, you name it. There's no fat here to trim, it's always so good. That said I can also imagine loving a version of this that's like 400 pages plus, but it's pretty much perfect as is. Just a wonderful wonderful book.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book about the relationship between two women with ups and downs. It reads more like a long short story or novella than a novel, because we get nice profiles of the two protagonists, but nothing really gets resolved at the end. I found that rather frustrating. Perhaps, this means I miss understood the title, or I am too demanding of novels.

[Yasmin · Rating 2 out of 5]

On a positive note, this book was a quick read. However, this is probably one of the weirdest book that I’ve read this year. I really wanted to like it but the plot seemed to meander and lack depth. I felt like i was on a plane to nowhere and characters were added just because. And the ending was abrupt and a serious WTF for me. Probably because i was eager to finish and somewhere along the way I must have missed some important details. Nevertheless, it wasn’t important enough for me to rewind to listen more closely.

[Shereadbookblog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liselle is hosting a dinner party for her husband, Winn, an unsuccessful political candidate. She has been warned that he is under FBI investigation for his campaign and is about to be arrested. As she lives through the dinner party, she reflects back on a happier time when she was in college and was with her lover, Selena, as well as her earlier life with Winn. Meanwhile, Selena, who has had mental health issues through the years, makes her way through the same day. Both contemplate their pasts as thoughts shift to each other.

Reminiscent of Mrs. Dalloway, Sula, and Zami, I enjoyed this short read; especially its observations of contemporary life (it was published in 2021). Despite the brevity of the novel, the diverse characters were well developed and their musings give the reader a lot to think about.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #fsgbooks for the DRC.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmmm. This was a strange little book. Quite offbeat in its telling and unremarkable as a story. Not much of a plot, just seems to be saying, this is my journey and this is her journey. We were together, as a romantic couple in College and this is how our life turned out. Yep! I've simplified the endeavor but that is the gist of the book. The writing is good enough to justify the continued eyeball moving, but there isn't any depth to the characters, at least not enough to create care, empathy or really, any emotion. A love story perhaps, is deep in the rubble of a plot. A lackluster political thriller may be among the ruins. The book is very short, just clearing novella status, and it ended with a thud, thankfully so. Because clearly there was nowhere else this story could go. The strangeness of this review is intentional, designed to mirror the unusualness of this work.

[Jaclyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Ann Patchett recommends a book to you, you read the book (admittedly it was on a zoom with many other booksellers but still I felt like she was talking to me). This is a beautiful rumination on black queer love. It’s nicely contained temporally to the events of a single evening while also spanning a lifetime. BEAUTIFULLY done. Made my heart hurt but in the best way possible. Deliberate, precise, controlled.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned more about perspective and observation than I expected to, through these disparate characters. The author juxtaposes a hardline moral compass with the hazy ill-defined life, and exposes the limits of each of them. Relationships are hard, and no one gets everything right. This is a very thoughtful novel.

[Janae (The Modish Geek) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

A darkly humorous, introspective look into the lives of two Black women. They are both complicated, complex, and dealing with a lot of shit. I found both Liselle & Selena so interesting and I appreciated the dynamics and layers of their experiences beyond being Black.

I can understand why this might not work for everyone (there aren't really any answers) but it worked for me. My only complaint is that there wasn't more.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the title, you might think this book is a work of African literature. In fact, it deals with social, political, class and racial attitudes in a slice of life in Philadelphia during the Obama years, interspersed with our protagonist’s earlier relationship with her girlfriend. The result was just OK—a bit too choppy and with too many loose ends to be satisfying.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back in a previous life when I was an English student in university, we learned about something called intertextuality, which loosely put is the relationship among various texts. All I can say is that I am glad I read at least one book by Audre Lorde before reading The Days of Afrekete, which from its title to its tropes is steeped in Lorde’s work. (A lot of other reviews are also comparing it to Mrs. Dalloway , and while I suppose I see that comparison it’s less interesting to me given how little I remember of the book). This is a novel where, if you completely ignore the intertexuality, you might walk away from it feeling like Asali Solomon hasn’t done anything. It’s quite a flat, meditative, unassuming story on the surface. If you are willing to extend yourself slightly and view the book as in conversation with Lorde, Woolf, and others, then of course there’s something much deeper afoot.

The book takes place over two main time periods. It begins in the present day, where Liselle Belmont’s husband, Winn, has just lost his primary bid to run for a congressional seat. Liselle is Black and from their town of Philadelphia; Winn is the son of white northeasterners. Solomon frames Liselle’s narrative around hosting one last dinner party for Winn’s supporters. The contemplative mood of the night prompts her to think back to her college years, where she was one of a small number of Black lesbians on the Bryn Mawr campus, and for one half of her final year she dated another Black woman, Selena Octave. Meanwhile, Liselle debates whether or not to tell Winn that she learned, from an FBI agent, that he is going to be indicted for corruption.

Solomon’s choice to privilege Liselle’s perspective for the majority of the book is an interesting one. Selena finally gets her say towards the end, and we see her relationship with Liselle through her eyes and also learn more about her family dynamics. But this is definitely Liselle’s story. As Solomon excavates the layers of Liselle’s life in front of us, it’s a reminder that seldom can we predict how our lives will turn out. Twenty-two-year-old lesbian Liselle would never have guessed she would be a schoolteacher married to a white man and a mother, right? Twenty-two-year-old Kara would never have guessed that she would, at thirty, come out as trans, change her name and pronouns, launch her own book review website and not one but two podcasts … life is a ride, my friends!

Yeah, see I can relate to this book despite being neither Black nor lesbian nor American. It is very tempting to utter some nonsense like, “this is a book about Blackness” or “this is a book about being a queer Black woman” followed by an even worse clause like, “and therefore I, as a white woman, cannot possibly understand or participate in it.” I think the reader I was several years ago likely would have said that—but I like to think that now I have grown out of such racist ideas. Yes, it is very much the case that there are layers to this book, themes and tropes and even perhaps storytelling structures, that are less accessible to me in my whiteness. I haven’t read a lot of Lorde, haven’t read Zora Neale Hurston, don’t have the background in the literature of the African diaspora that Solomon and many other Black people do, either by dint of exposure or through more intensive study. Nevertheless, if I use that as an excuse to dismiss the book and recuse myself from criticism or review, really what I’m saying is something Lorde pushes back against in Sister Outsider, namely, that Black literature can only ever be for Black people, whereas white literature is apparently for everyone.

So while you should totally take my review, as a white lady, with more grains of salt than you would the review of a queer African-American woman, I hope you can appreciate my decision to embrace my discomfort with my lack of subject knowledge here rather than dismiss it.

For when you try to engage, even as superficially and ineptly as I can, with the queer and Black themes of The Days of Afrekete, that’s where the novel begins to shine. Honestly the political stuff, the indictment hanging over their heads, Liselle’s fraught relationship with Winn—none of it is all that interesting until you consider how Solomon weaves the dynamics of sexuality and race into the conversation. America, of course, is a country built on white supremacy and exploitation and a deliberately persistent amnesia about those things. A mixed-race couple is inherently one of tension regardless of their personal feelings simply because of how they are perceived by the state and by society—perhaps the most blatant example of this comes deep within the story, when Liselle flashes back to taking her baby around town and people assume she is his nanny rather than his mother because he isn’t dark-skinned like her. Similarly, whether he realizes it or not, Winn harnesses his wife’s Blackness when he tries to win a primary bid against the incumbent Black congressperson of this predominantly Black district.

Through the title and the flashbacks we see, Solomon advances a thesis that despite their disconnection and divergence, there is something fundamental that ties Liselle and Selena together. It isn’t their queer Black womanhood per se, but that is a core component. Take, for example, Liselle’s sense of isolation among the lesbian community at Bryn Mawr, mirrored by how out of place she feels among a sea of white girls trying to take a class in African diaspora literature. This is exactly what Lorde means when she criticizes Black women’s exclusion from feminism, along with the tense relationship between queer Black women and many Black communities. That’s the “outsider” part of the equation: Liselle often stands apart, even when she is with those who are supposedly her people. Now, in her middle age, she finds herself among a group that is decidedly not her people. And the question she seeks to answer is, how did I get here?

I feel like there is a lot more I could unpack about this novel if I had the time, energy, and perhaps were better read on these subjects. This wasn’t quite the book I wanted to read this week, for its weight settled heavily atop existing weighty emotions. Nevertheless, I am glad I read it. I hope other white people challenge themselves to read novels like this, to expose yourself to genres and modes of storytelling that are not for us but should still be part of the larger, mainstream literary discussion.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. The Days of Afrekete was a juicy, thoughtful, slantwise retelling of Mrs. Dalloway, with a storyline and characters somewhat familiar to my fellow Dalloway-lovers: namely, Liselle (as Clarissa) a frustrated, upwardly mobile Bryn Mawr graduate, whose emotionally distant husband lost a political race and is now, potentially, in Big Trouble; and Selena, a hybrid character (as I understood it) of Sally Seton, Clarissa Dalloway's teenage lesbian lover (or so it is implied) and the ill-fated Septimus Warren Smith.

Despite these clear, welcome analogues, in no way did this book feel dry or repetitive –– on the contrary, I found myself eager to see what Solomon would do next with the story, particularly as it addressed racial and class politics relevant to the 1990s and early 2010s that Woolf could not have hoped to grasp. The social commentary was pointed and often funny, with even more serious portions of the book quite buoyant, a welcome reprieve from this recent spate of more somber political literary novels. I call up Austen here, too, in Solomon's list of influences, but truthfully this is a bookworm's book all around, and a treat for people interested in a unique and excellently-written retelling that also holds its own as an original novel.

[zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liselle sweats out her blandly curated life like a cheap blowout and I loved every second of it. Brilliant, biting and sharp—Shonda Rhimes mention? Oh you know I was cheesing—this novel was damn near everything I’ve been wanting to read, ever. It’s probably (definitely) too early to be adding to my end of year favourites but I will anyway, because this book is already #1. Asali Solomon pulled me in with her crisp, lush style; I want to do little snow angels between her deliciously direct lines of dialogue. There are no obvious, circular metaphors or overly described, so-precious-it’s-offputting-lines-of-purple-prose here, just wit. And confident, amused stylization, that had me smiling even when I really wanted to shake the characters sensible. Unlike books that show the characters compatibility though cliches, trite observations and generalized couple activities, Liselle and Selena’s experiences and conversations are unique and whole and just disrespectful enough, that at times, I almost felt like an intruder, for how real they were. Like a couple I could know and a couple I definitely wanted more of (that ending? Oh she got me).

Miss Solomon if you’re reading this please drop another one the streets (my block at least) are begging!


OR: Jan 23

-

24E

asali solomon the writer you are!!!!

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. Queer black women finding their way back to each other? All for it. The story was compelling, the storytelling so sloppy and character development incredibly uneven. I stuck it out til the end, but I regret that.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

All I’ll say for now is: I loved this but wanted more.

[ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the dinner party setting and the writing style, I would’ve loved this if it had more scenes with Liselle & Selena. I wanted to drown in their time together.

[Lulu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not really sure what this was, but it seems as though the story ended before it even started.

[lauraღ · Rating 4 out of 5]

But as they ribbed each other, she suddenly felt the rightness of the world. Knowing, however, that the world was dead wrong, she knew the feeling must be Selena.

4.5 stars. I've wanted to read this for several years, ever since I've heard of it. And Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf has been on my tentative TBR since university. Since I hadn't read the blurb, I had no idea that this book was in sorta conversation with Mrs. Dalloway. So that fact that I read that just last week, and then happened to get this from the library this week? A beautiful kind of serendipity. And while it's structurally a very different work from Woolf's, it hits some of the same thematic beats, and I enjoyed it thoroughly! Just as much as Woolf, in fact. 

The narrative takes us back and forth in the lives of Liselle and Selena, two black women who were lovers in college, but drifted apart after their breakup. Now in their forties, Liselle is married to an upper-class white man with political aspirations, and Selena is working two jobs trying to keep herself grounded and sane. We mostly follow Liselle on the day of a dinner party she's hosting for her husband's friends and colleagues, as she tries to figure out how to handle an upcoming disaster. We get frequent flashbacks that populate the gap between college and now, show us the shape of her life and how she got there. It's really beautifully written, in short, vignette-y chapters, with a lot of introspection and character interrogation. It was sad, and fascinating, and a little terrifying, to see how life can kind of sweep you away when you're not looking; how the years roll onwards and upwards until you're a different person without realising it. I love books that just lay into characters like this, painting a really vivid picture of them. Even if there weren't the similarities to Mrs. Dalloway in the fact of the dinner party and the imperfect marital relationship, I think I'd have still been reminded of it. It doesn't use stream of consciousness and the perspective doesn't hop around quite as much, but there's something in the vibe, the atmosphere.

And idk, I guess I'm just primed to enjoy books about messy lesbian situationships, about women falling out and possibly coming back together, about black sapphics finding pain and joy. Selena's perspectives are fewer and mostly confined to the latter half, but it's absolutely arresting. Especially in her mental health struggles, and her flashbacks where she ruminates on her queerness. We don't see a lot of Liselle and Selena together in the present timeline, but they still feel irrevocably tethered together. Lots of interesting side characters too; Patrice, Liselle's mother, is far from sympathetic, but she's one of those larger than life characters that takes up space even when she's not on page. And I always appreciate narratives about imperfect motherhood. We got that from both her and Liselle. All told, this had a slightly aimless feeling to it, but I ended up loving that about it. I wish that it had been longer, that we'd seen more of the intersection of Liselle and Selena's lives, but also... it ended in the perfect place.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Karen Chilton, which was really great! I haven't always loved her narration style, but in this, it worked perfectly for me. This was a little book that packed a punch, gave me a lot to think on and chew on. I have a lot of Audre Lorde books on my TBR, and this made me want to get to them even quicker. Especially Zami, of course. And I'd love to peruse the other books this refers to, and then revisit this in the future. It would make this experience even richer.

Content warnings: psychiatric hospitalisation (off page)

[Wilhelmina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful pairing with Mrs. Dalloway. I wanted a bit more depth but enjoyed the overall story and the way the characters unfolded with current events paired with past history. I very much enjoyed the undercurrent of a love story which highlights the bittersweet reality of those relationships we have that never leave our heart, despite continual movement forward in life.

[Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. I…don’t know how I feel about this. I liked it for the most part, hence the four stars. The writing was good, it’s paced well, and the characters felt real and flawed. There was just something about the plot that didn’t fully work for me the way that I wanted and I don’t know why. I’m gonna sit on this one for a bit to see how I’m feeling but for now four stars I guess.

[Gulshan B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story starts off on an interesting premise, in fact almost an intriguing premise, but doesn't quite know how to keep that promise, or that pace, for that matter.

Following the footsteps of recent chartbusters with similar characterizations, The Days of Afrekete tries hard, but never really too much, to carry the baton of gender and racial awareness, interspersed with social justice, and sprinkled with sexual libertarianism. IMHO, the problem here is not a shortage of ideas, but really a shortage of strong storyline, to carry such heavy-hitter subjects to the finish line.

Liselle and Selena are close friends, one-time lovers, who don't really know what to do with their lives, once they realize they are growing out of their teen years, and later on as they are growing out of their college years. Nothing unusual there, and yet there are glimpses of a searing flame, that becomes visible only intermittently and fleetingly when reading this novel. There are clear instances where the story could have been taken in a direction to become a tinderbox, or to have a blowout, or to at least have a strong confrontation - alas, none of the characters, especially the two somewhat- and sometimes-pretentious leads who seem to not have been given enough leeway to spread their wings and soar.

The blurb reference to an FBI angle is never really allowed to flesh out. That, if perhaps let flow out, could have been a good parallel anchor to the social satire that this story had the potential to become. As it is, the political plot elements seem futile, there only to be mocked at, and don't play into the storyline. Clearly, the main storyline is of the two young (and then not-so-young) women, but there too I felt there were not enough anchors to pull them to each other. Sure there are instances and glimpses, but didn't come across as compelling.

Overall, a good premise, with reasonably interesting characters, but not enough of a story.

Thanks to NetGalley and FSG for providing a digital eARC for this true review.

[df parizeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the majority of this book. The plot was juicy enough to keep me intrigued until the end, which is something I often find missing in similar books. I really needed this after two straight DNFs on novels.

I'm usually not a fan when publisher's use classics to comp their books--it immediately puts an onus on the reader to temper their expectations. In this case however, the Mrs. Dalloway comparison is quite apt.

The obvious correlation to a dinner party aside, the manner in which Solomon shifts time to the story's whims is virtuoso. It builds such a rich portrait of who Liselle is and how she came to become that person.

Like others, I do think Selena's story feels a bit tacked on at the end, but I'm also apt to think that this underscores the callbacks to Lorde and the titular Afrekete.

I originally gave this book a 3, but after writing these thoughts, I'm bumping it up to a 4. The ending felt a bit lacking, but overall this is a fantastic read.

[Karen Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

With echos of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, this short novel focuses mostly on a single day in a woman’s life, with musings of the past, of experiences that got her to that place. As Liselle prepares for a stuffy dinner party on the evening that her husband’s political ambitions have been dashed and an FBI corruption investigation are underway, she looks back at a significant affair with Selena, a woman from her past. Steeped in sharp observations on race, sexuality and politics, it’s a well written story, let down by its rather abrupt ending.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick and poignant novel about a woman at the intersections of sexuality, race, and class, sweating through the most stressful few hours of her life and parsing through the memories of the lives and identities she held and left behind. Love the way Solomon paces the stakes of an otherwise mundane (and full of comically unaware well-to-do folks) dinner party against a climax that may or may not come and a failed former relationship that becomes a symbol of everything Liselle abandoned in her marriage and adult life.

[Sarah Cetra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not think I understood this book.

There were some clever moments on race, class, and politics, and the flashbacks from the dinner party almost worked for me, but the ending left me wanting more, and so much seemed unexplored.

P.S. If you like plot-driven books, this isn’t for you. No plot, just vibes.