A Rock, A River, A Street

by Steffani Jemison

An experimental novella about the bounds of the self and the many forms of embodied expression Where does your body end and the world begin? How do you locate the limit between your self and others? A Rock, A River, A Street follows a young, Black woman who lives at the hazy border between Brooklyn and Queens in the not so distant present. As she rides the subway, walks around her neighborhood, visits the doctor, watches movies, attends dance class and tries to heal her body, we are brought into her conflicted relationship with language, as she recalls formative experiences from her childhood and absorbs the world around her. Acutely conscious of the soft, responsive nature of her physical self, and pushed and pulled by forces she cannot control, the narrator is vulnerable, terrifyingly open. Everything and everyone leaves an impression. Brooklyn-based artist Steffani Jemison (born 1981) moves deftly across narrative genres and styles in this novella, as she interrogates the boundedness of the self, the possibilities of plurality and the limits of performance.

149 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 2022

Reviews

[Zoe]

oh dear i wanted to love this (bc i found it in a fated way in nyc) but i found it desperately annoying......it felt self-indulgent but in a completely opaque way that occluded all meaning and its conclusions about porosity felt boring & un-nuanced. also it did so much mic drop drama. lastly, i didn't understand how the threads came together and it all felt very disconnected.

tldr this book felt a little like being on the edge of a conversation at oberlin of someone explaining contact improv to a first yr

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short passage from A Rock, A River, A Street:


“I used to think that time is just one thing, the way a ruler is always the same length, twelve inches or twenty-four inches or even a yard.

Then I started to run and learned that time is only like distance if we measure distance with taffy or rubber bands or chewing gum or pleats, anything that can expand wide like an accordion or shrink small enough to swallow.

I found that the twenty or thirty minutes of a run could feel like the longest twenty minutes of your life. The final block, the final leg, the final lap, the final half mile – they could feel like the longest hundred feet in the world.

Even when I ran every day, when I felt I could never imagine being more accustomed to something than I was accustomed to running, even then, I sometimes felt I would never reach the end.

There are things you do because they’re easy and there are other things you do.”

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were things single people living alone don't often have, like an electric razor, and sometimes she would wear a baggy men's cardigan, so big it could have wrapped itself twice around her slight frame, and although she wore it casually and unsentimentally, I had a feeling that she was wrapping herself in someone else when she wore it, but I never asked, not really. I didn't know how to begin. Once I tried, I said, "You look like you're wrapped in someone else," just like that, and she tightened, I wouldn't call it a smile, and said nothing. But then I thought of my liturgical dance teacher, who wrapped nothing in mohair and called it grace.

[Robyn Towle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice read for a lifelong runner or introvert (I am neither). Colorful and accurate depictions of adolescence which I appreciated. Symbolism felt forced into neat bows at the conclusion of some chapters like circular poems. Might appeal to others in a way it did not appeal to me.

[Joscelyn Timberley]

DNF

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Experimental, experiential, always moving