Tuesday or September or the End

by Hannah Black

“This intimate and funny and abstract fiction uses fable, and unreality, to flood a reader with the real, to remind her what is at stake.” –Rachel Kushner During a residency on Fire Island, artist and writer Hannah Black decided to tackle a highly daunting the 2020 novel. The result of her efforts, Tuesday of September or the End , is a slim, playful work of speculative fiction. Written in the aftermath of the early months of the pandemic and the uprisings of summer 2020, the novel explores the ruptures of the year with a satirical sci-fi bent. Black chronicles the lives of two characters, Bird and Dog, as they contend with rapidly changing political possibilities during the pandemic while the run of Moley Salamanders (i.e. Bernie Sanders) concludes and aliens finally invade earth. Through a galvanic vision of how the riots of 2020 might have turned revolutionary, Black offers a meditation on collective life. This crucial novel invites readers to consider who we are―and, by extension, what we are here for―when our normal referents are muted, deleted and upended.
Hannah Black (born 1981) is a New York–based visual artist, critic and writer from Manchester, England. Her work spans video, text and performance and draws from communist, feminist and Afro-pessimist theory. She is the author of Life (2017, with Juliana Huxtable) and Dark Pool Party (2016). Black is represented by the gallery Arcadia Missa in London and Isabella Bortolozzi in Berlin.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Science Fiction, Literature

132 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Mari]

electrifying—the exact type of alien fiction I've always wanted to read: what does it do to our revolutionary potential to observe ourselves from the outside? but the opposite of predictable or cheap or neatly legible. an achievement as a novel of the pandemic and the uprising, which is saying something!

[juch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sally Rooney meets eugene lim? Beautiful attention to interpersonal relationships in context of social rupture + experimental form. More elevated/academic language than either of those writers which was sometimes frustrating, sometimes nice (I like it when ppl write poetically about capital maybe bc i don’t understand it). I loved the beginning, bird and dog representing two opposing political orientations (jaded “burn it all down” vs social democrat) but connected through not just wanting a better world but love and interdependence. I loved when it rly got weird w the TV show and the aliens

I have mixed feelings about the ending which I feel like brings up the general challenge of how do you represent revolution in content as well as form, in a language that doesn’t yet exist? I think form is important bc otherwise the vision you are offering feels dead!

The stuff w alien language was beautiful and getting there, and I really appreciate black putting her money where her mouth is and spelling out the details of her vision but I just couldn’t help but think - that’s not how it went down, in fact the opposite, we are not at the level of organization needed to transfer power and idealism (or aliens, or Cuba which was confusing given the skepticism of the state) isn’t going to help us get there :(

Still thank you Hannah black for writing this moving and bold book. It’s cool that it’s written about a very recent reality that still feels very much unprocessed! I want my friends to read this and tell me what they think

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully written and thrilling novella about 2020, what Black does best: theory as fiction. Though one wonders if the ending is ideologically too easy and neat considering how many political polarities existed in 2020. That being said, it’s what I would expect from a collision of black people and aliens, unlike Peele’s Nope.

[Luca Suede · Rating 5 out of 5]

A zippy page turner that had me GRIPPED. Great story telling, beautiful language, political education weaved throughout. I might actually use the convo between bird & dog on pgs 29-35 for Poli-Ed/facilitation. My friend Asli who gave me this book said on her review “The only good pandemic novel” and I think that sums it up perfectly.

[Asli Athman · Rating 5 out of 5]

the one good pandemic novel

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speculative fiction version of the first 6 months of 2020 that is both very real and very not real. Lots of good lines! And nice to imagine a collective future :)

Learned about: community, dreaming a new reality

[Mathilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 for some good turns of phrase. “Chance was just destiny dressed in everyday clothes.”

[Michael Dipietro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to "star" this one. I really loved the way it set out - very like a Gregg Araki vision of 2020 only without the homoeroticism. Black had me hooked right up through the hilarious parody-descriptions of that political moment alongside the ficticous TV show "Fossa and the Ancient Aliens". This really captures the emotional tenor of the pandemic and last few years, particularly that fleeting moment in lockdown when, mid-collapse, everything felt oddly full of hope and possibility to reinvent social structures.

The last chapter, in which her magical realist version of 2020 devastation blossoms into an utopian vision of anarchist mutual aid felt...well, kinda rosy, over-simplified, and written in a rush (not in a good way).

Still, I VERY much enjoyed Black's experimentalism and voice, and wish this novella was expanded into something 4x longer. Sustaining the best parts of this writing--and there are a lot of them!--in a longer, more fully fleshed novel would be pretty amazing.

[Trevor Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Masterwork.

Hannah Black's recent novel feels like something written by the initiated high art New York crowd, but in a good way. The plot most involves the protagonist "Bird"'s dealing with her friends during the devastating year of 2020 in all it's pandemic collapse glory. There is a local political election backstory thrown in the mix, but that's not important. What is important is Hannah Black's nihilism inducing social commentary given to reader with some hard one-liners. Whether it's discussing Malcolm X's "final and craziest year" or deconstructing planetary exhaustion, she seems to know her way around observational critique. It's all over the place, with the last chapters becoming somewhat incoherent literary concept art. But somehow it just works

[Lbiddiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woah. Highly recommend this book, especially if you remember the first six months of 2020 as some sort of surreal fever-dream where the days and weeks blended seamlessly into one another and left you feeling like the only thing that could add to the strangeness is an alien invasion. Because that is this book.

[Sarah Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange book with an interesting structure and moments of surreal beauty. I can’t say I was all that engrossed, given that much of the story was taken up with political background information, but I appreciate that Black is doing something experimental and cool, not necessarily something that’s meant to eat you up like a beach read.

[Madee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish it were more detailed and character driven, but interesting, unique, and optimistic. to read an alternate fiction on 2020 is wild and really brought me back, but ofc we can all (un)fortunately relate to the character’s internal and external experiences in one way or another

[J. Moufawad-Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

My full review is here:

https://minorliteratures.com/2022/05/...

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this is an interesting pandemic book. The ending was a little too neat for me, knocked off a star there. A wild ride.

[Kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

😭 the last 15 pages!! I forced myself to stop reading this in one sitting, to sit and think about what was going on in the text over a longer period of time. the rhythm of the text is so fun--it languishes and then unfurls, maybe itself "expanding the surface of time."

I've tried to describe the experience of open possibility like this to my students as "melting my brain." but I also love this version: "In the individual body, the revolution felt as if the hands and feet had snapped off at the end of the arms and legs, the head too had hinged perfectly and cleanly from the neck, and it turned out that the body was just brimming with a universal light that now radiated outwards."