Black History Month in Book Reviews

Code Noir: Fictions

Windham Campbell Prize–winning poet Lubrin (Voodoo Hypothesis) makes her fiction debut with a thrilling and inventive collection centered on Black life in the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. Each of the 59 entries follow a full-page drawing by artist Torkwase Dyson that incorporates a passage from the 1685 Codes Noirs, the French laws for chattel slavery. The stories place characters in a range of situations, from the quotidian—making yogurt in a German abbey (“Goodbye, Achilles”), meeting a lover in a Chinese restaurant (“The Wild Formulas of Love”)—to the earth-shattering: a friend beaten by police (“No ID, or We Could Be Brothers”), a family torn apart by deportation (“Other Forms of Hunting”). Highlights include the moving “At the Spirito Santo Station,” about two tourists’ encounter with a Senegalese man in Venice, and the incandescent “Black Rhino,” about an orphan baby learning to talk. Throughout, Lubrin plays with form and genre, interspersing traditional narratives with more experimental modes such as dramatic dialogues (“The Boy, the Girls, the Dog, and I Was There”), epistolary exchanges (“Theatre of the Spectacular,” “A Philosophical Question”), and aphoristic writing resembling prose poetry (“Earth in the Time of Aimé Césaire,” “Bad Temper”). Her gorgeous and innovative style shines on nearly every page (“We entered a great expanse, glistening and with every bright colour in every pattern, all networks and perfumes against amnesia”). It’s a monumental achievement. Agent: Samantha Haywood, Transatlantic Agency. (Feb.)

Harlem Rhapsody

Murray (coauthor of The First Ladies) delivers a winning portrait of Harlem Renaissance figure Jessie Redmon Faust (1882–1961). Jessie moves to Harlem from Washington, D.C., in 1919 to serve as literary editor of NAACP magazine The Crisis, helmed by W.E.B. Du Bois. Faust is thrilled at the opportunity to provide a venue for Black writers and helps to make stars out of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, but she risks her career and the magazine’s reputation by having a secret affair with Du Bois, who is married. Murray illuminates Faust’s steadfast and selfless work, showing how she labored behind the scenes to bring others to prominence while putting her own dream of writing a novel on hold, a sacrifice made bitter when she watches Du Bois receive the acclaim. Murray doesn’t shy away from her characters’ flaws, examining for instance Du Bois’s disdain for uneducated Black people and Faust’s mother’s well-meaning if unhelpful chastening (“You are neither white nor a man, and so you’ll be judged harshly and unfairly, even as you perform well”). Historical fiction fans will want to snatch this up. Agent: Liza Dawson, Lisa Dawson Assoc. (Feb.)

Junie

In Eckstine’s finely crafted debut, an enslaved teen girl uncovers secrets about her family in 1860 Alabama. Junie labors with several relatives on a plantation, which is being run into the ground by its alcoholic owner, William McQueen. When Junie’s older sister, Minnie, dies of fever after rescuing Junie from a river she’d fallen into, she’s wracked with guilt. Junie serves as maid to William’s 17-year-old daughter, Violet, whom William and his wife hope will marry wealthy Louisiana cotton merchant Beauregard Taylor. Junie learns that if the marriage goes through, she’ll be forced to accompany Violet to New Orleans and leave her family behind. Distraught, she makes a late-night visit to Minnie’s grave. When she opens the small jar of Minnie’s favorite things left there by her relatives, she inadvertently summons Minnie’s ghost. It turns out Minnie is caught in the In-Between, which holds the spirits of Black people who have left their earthly missions undone. Minnie asks Junie to help free her spirit by locating a small box she has hidden in the plantation house. Junie succeeds, and finds evidence that her family and the McQueens are linked in ways she never imagined, which, along with news of Violet’s engagement, drive her desire to escape. The complex plot and righteous protagonist will keep readers turning the pages. Eckstine evokes the earthly and supernatural to equally powerful effect in this richly layered tale. (Feb.)

People of Means

Johnson (The Kindest Lie) delivers an illuminating multigenerational drama of a Black mother and daughter finding their way amid America’s racial inequities. It begins in 1959 Nashville, where Chicagoan Freda Gilroy arrives to study mathematics at Fisk University, an HBCU revered by her father, who, like W.E.B. Du Bois, considered higher education to be “their people’s true emancipation.” She’s soon caught in a love triangle with premed student Gerald, who subscribes to her father’s ideals, and firebrand activist Darius, who drops out to focus on battling segregation. Eventually, Freda ends up with Gerald. A parallel narrative set in 1992 Chicago follows their daughter, Tulip, a PR agent whose dismissive colleagues chalk up her presence to their firm’s diversity quota. With the Los Angeles riots roiling the country, Tulip is torn between striving for professional success and fighting for justice, especially after she gets involved with a protest group whose members dismiss her for being more privileged than they are. As the alternating story lines unfold, Johnson reveals what happened between Freda, Gerald, and Darius, and the effects of Freda’s choices on Tulip, offering a nuanced reflection on her characters’ sacrifices and the limits of Black respectability politics. It’s a satisfying tale of intergenerational reckoning. Agent: Danielle Bukowski, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Feb.)

The Rules of Fortune

In the twisty latest from Prescod (Token Black Girl), the heirs of a billionaire construction manufacturer and real estate baron contend with his complex legacy. William Carter Jr., the son of a Boston janitor, built his company from the ground up and is now a respected Black philanthropist. The reader learns early on that William will die shortly before his 70th birthday, which the family plans to celebrate at their summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. As the occasion approaches, his filmmaker daughter, Kennedy, creates a tribute film as a present. Determined to show something more substantive than the shiny image the Carter Corporation has projected from its New York City headquarters, Kennedy digs into her father’s past, uncovering shady intel about the corporation’s monopoly on real estate in Ghana. Meanwhile, William learns someone is asking too many questions about his past dealings, and Prescod keeps the reader guessing as to whether that person is Kennedy or someone else. Further complicating matters, after William’s death, his son Asher, who is failing out of Harvard Business School, attempts to prove he’s fit to take over the company. Prescod deepens the drama by exploring Kennedy’s and Asher’s scruples (or lack thereof) and whether it’s possible to amass wealth with “clean hands” (Asher blithely says otherwise). Succession fans ought to take note. Agent: Jessica Alvarez, BookEnds Literary. (Feb.)

The Sable Cloak

Memoirist Grant (At the Elbows of My Elders), who died earlier this year, makes her posthumous fiction debut with the stirring tale of an influential Black family in St. Louis. In 1914, Jordan Sable founds a union for his fellow railway coach cleaners. He goes on to open a successful undertaker business and become a political operator, securing Black votes for the Democratic Party. His influence draws ire from the city’s Republican mayor, who attempts to have him assassinated in 1923. Jordan survives the attack and marries Sarah, and they have a daughter, Vivian. Afterward, Sarah becomes the face of their business, buying an elegant mansion for them to live in and run the funeral parlor out of. The family’s idyl ends abruptly in 1941, with another shocking attack. Grant presents an evocative view of affluent Black life prior to the civil rights era, showing how her characters’ wealth and influence can’t shield them from racial violence. It’s a rich family saga delivered with style and heart. (Feb.)

How to Sell Out: The (Hidden) Cost of Being a Black Writer

In this candid memoir-in-essays, Yearbook podcaster Sanders (Black Magic) reflects on his ambivalence over staking out a career writing about racism. After quitting his tech job to try making it in Hollywood, he felt compelled by “market pressure to lean into pain” after noticing that most shows with Black protagonists centered on violent gangsters, and he recalls unsuccessfully pitching dozens of projects that never got picked up because they defied such stereotypes. Sanders offers a rueful account of how, hungry for success, he greeted the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd’s murder as a financial opportunity, rejoicing at his newfound platform after publishing a viral opinion piece in the New York Times asserting that he wanted his white friends’ money, not their condolences. Speaking engagements at Google and Target followed, as well as more op-eds, a book deal, and countless podcast appearances, but Sanders found that serving as the “voice of Blackness” reduced him to the traumas he had endured, leading him to vow that “this will be my last time writing about race.... Unless I need the money again.” Sanders pulls no punches in his self-criticism, offering a scathing assessment of how he “leveraged victimhood for money [and] clicks.” Readers will have a hard time putting this down. Agent: Eve Atterman, WME. (Feb.)

A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt

In this excellent biography, Chakkalakal (Novel Bondage), an American literature professor at Bowdoin College, chronicles the life of groundbreaking novelist Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932). Born to free Black parents who fled the South for Cleveland, Chesnutt became a teacher at age 16—it was one of the few professions open to ambitious young Black men. Aspiring to a more literary line of work, Chesnutt took a stenography job in 1883 and spent his nights writing short stories and novels, becoming in 1887 the first Black author to publish fiction in The Atlantic. Though Chesnutt’s day job put his writing on the back burner for nearly a decade, he secured a publishing deal with Houghton Mifflin and in 1899 published the short story collection The Conjure Woman, which marked the first time a major American publisher printed a fictional work by a nonwhite writer. Chakkalakal makes clear the enraging difficulties Chesnutt faced as a Black author in a white publishing industry, noting, for example, that Houghton misleadingly marketed The Conjure Woman as sentimental plantation fiction. She presents Chesnutt as something of a tragic figure for clawing his way to the upper echelon of American letters only to quit amid lackluster sales well over a decade before the Harlem Renaissance renewed interest in his work. An overdue celebration of an unjustly forgotten author, this enthralls. Agent: Wendy Strothman, Aevitas Creative Management. (Feb.)

Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism

The American education system for centuries developed on two parallel tracks, according to this brilliant history from sociologist and poet Ewing (Ghosts in the Schoolyard). One track, Ewing writes, was for white and European immigrant children, and on it great strides in education theory were made that emphasized how cooperation through play made for engaged citizens. These developments, as Ewing cannily notes, also functioned to erase cultural boundaries between white children from disparate backgrounds, solidifying a sense of cross-cultural whiteness. Meanwhile, the other track, for Indigenous and Black children, aimed to “annihilate” their cultural identity and train them as “subservient laborers,” according to Ewing. She brings to light plenty of harrowing evidence to this effect, not just as a broad strokes theory but in the minutiae of teacher-training manuals and educators’ writings. Her citations span from Reconstruction era textbooks written by Northern white educators who stated that their aim was to stop Black people’s “relapse into barbarism” and turn them into “useful citizens,” to her own recollections of her Chicago middle school class being taken to the Cook County Jail in an effort to have the students “scared straight.” This ideological undertaking was often framed as a common sense, dollars-and-cents solution, Ewing notes; for instance, she reports that the idea that “the country could save money by schooling Indians rather than endeavoring to kill them” was a recurring theme in her research. It’s a troubling and eye-opening examination of the foundational role educators played in developing America’s racial hierarchy. (Feb.)

A Short History of Black Craft in Ten Objects

Chairmaker Awake debuts with a wondrous celebration of how “Black people have resisted their erasure through craft” over the course of American history. Antebellum laws banning enslaved people from reading or writing led Black Americans to record their history in alternative ways, Awake explains, describing how the Pictorial Quilt of Harriet Powers, a 19th-century Georgia folk artist born into slavery, commemorated an 1833 meteor shower interpreted by enslaved people as a divine signal that they would soon be freed. Black Americans made vital contributions to Southern architecture, Awake notes, pointing out that the American-style porch derives from those built on slave cabins by enslaved Africans, who brought from their homelands more sophisticated strategies for staying cool in tropical climates than their European enslavers. Highlighting Black artists’ ingenuity across a variety of disciplines, Awake details how Richard Poyner revolutionized chair design in the mid-1800s by constructing backrests that bent backward, and how the Gullah community in the American Southeast transformed sweetgrass baskets from utilitarian tools for rice production into intricately woven decorative objects. The history offers fascinating insight into the creative ways Black artists have pushed back against oppression, and Holland’s dazzling illustrations highlight the dignity of the featured individuals and the remarkable craftsmanship that went into their creations. This will expand readers’ understanding of what crafts can do, and what they’re for. (Feb.)

The Stained Glass Window: A Family History as the American Story, 1790–1958

In this intricate, sumptuously written account, Pulitzer winner Lewis (W.E.B. Du Bois) offers a unique version of the American rags-to-riches story that shows how Black strivers had to navigate the nearly insurmountable obstacles and moral quandaries of slavery and Jim Crow in order to prosper. Delving into his own family history, Lewis uncovers a great-grandmother who bore children to her enslaver and inherited real estate from him, and, on another branch of his family tree, a great-great-grandmother who, as a free Black woman, worked as a plantation overseer and bore children to the plantation’s owner. As he follows these women’s descendants—a line of businesspeople, ministers, and educators—from Reconstruction through the civil rights era, Lewis intertwines their story with Atlanta’s history of resistance to white supremacy, often exerted through the power of the city’s Black bourgeoisie. An exquisite stylist and wide-ranging intellect, Lewis ties in many other threads, including an illuminating study of the Black bourgeoisie’s evolving relationship to the philosophy of Booker T. Washington, who posited that separate but equal prosperity was possible through economic uplift (Lewis bears a sharp and amusing disdain for the thinker, repeatedly insinuating, in arch and ironic prose, that he was somewhat annoying: “Some of the... students probably found Booker Washington’s antebellum similes cringeworthy”). The result is a scintillating and piercing study of how the Black upper class emerged from a fraught system in which violence, family, and inheritance were intertwined. (Feb.)

You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon’s Fight for Free Speech

Georgetown law professor Snyder (Democratic Justice) vividly recreates the life of labor organizer Angelo Herndon (1914–1997), who in 1932 faced “a possible death sentence” over his possession of “communist literature.” Born to Alabama sharecroppers, Herndon began working at 13 and was soon drawn to the local chapter of the American Communist Party. After rising through the party ranks and moving to Atlanta, he became a target of the KKK and Georgia government officials. Following the police seizure of radical literature from his rooms, he was charged with “insurrection” under a slavery-era law. At his trial, his attorney argued that “you can’t kill a man because of the books he reads,” staving off a death sentence. Herndon was convicted and consigned to a chain gang, but after years of appeals the Supreme Court finally overtured Georgia’s insurrection law as unconstitutional, freeing Herndon. He went on to become a “literary figure” in Harlem, penning an autobiography and founding a magazine (he made Ralph Ellison managing editor). Snyder astutely dissects Herndon’s story for its ramifications for civil liberties and free speech today—including the continued persecution Herndon faced for the political content of his magazine, which Snyder is careful to layer with Herndon’s own shortcomings as a businessman (Ellison, whose paychecks “failed to materialize,” quit after the third issue). The result is a rewarding and kaleidoscopic look at the early years of civil rights activism. (Feb.)

Milk White Steed

Dislocation and unfulfilled dreams haunt this ragged yet affecting debut collection from New Yorker cartoonist Kennedy. With a blocky style that alternates between immersive chaos and wider scenes of emptiness, Kennedy’s storytelling is loose, fanciful, and at times hard to grasp. The 10 stories span decades, oceans, and even solar systems but are linked by the longing for home. Kennedy’s semi-dazed wanderers and dreamers traverse the cold damp “bleak” of England’s Midlands, where Caribbean emigrants of the Windrush generation face nativist hate and loneliness; 1920s Louisiana, where a ghostly folk tale has the cutting rawness of an undiscovered Delta blues masterpiece; and a faraway planet where even interstellar exploration cannot escape the stain of colonialism. There are fitful references to resistance, as in the callout to dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson’s “Inglan is a Bitch” and a woman’s declaration of postcolonial optimism (“Damn right, the Irish, the Africas, next the Indies... all the rapers and the pillagers can get stuffed!”). But despite all the talking animals, spirits, and shape-shifting, Kennedy’s vision maintains a gritty, true-to-life understanding of the perpetually in-between state of diasporic peoples. This dreamy and embittered work lays bare the challenges of living in an inequitable world. (Feb.)

Surrounded: America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832

Lupano (The Old Geezers) offers a harrowing glimpse into the trials and tribulations a school of trailblazing Black students faced in antebellum America. Prudence Crandall runs a boarding school for girls in Canterbury, Conn. When a young Black girl named Sarah comes to her seeking an education, Prudence admits her to the school despite disapproval from both Black and white townspeople. After the backlash, the headmistress doubles down, opening her school exclusively to “young ladies of color.” As more students arrive, tensions rise. Laws are passed to shut the school down, townspeople terrorize the students with acts of vandalism and violence, and the girls are denied entry into the local church (“Nat Turner showed us what happens when negroes think they understand scripture,” one white woman says as she blocks their way). Prudence fights for what she believes is right, taking her case to the Supreme Court, though the consequences of her win are tragic. Lupano’s fairy tale–esque rendering of this true story makes each member of the ensemble cast distinct, though side stories about a feral boy and a witchy recluse muddy the script. Earth-toned coloring gives Fert’s whimsical cartoon drawings a more somber feel. Readers will be inspired by this ultimately hopeful take on a shameful history. (Feb.)

All the Blues in the Sky

Sage is left reeling after her best friend is killed in a hit-and-run accident. And since she was on the way to celebrate Sage’s 13th birthday, Sage blames herself for the event. At school, she starts attending a grief counseling group where she meets DD and Ebony, whose loved ones also died unexpectedly. With the help of her new friends, her crush Kofi, and her beloved aunt Ini, Sage learns more about the grieving process. All the while, she struggles to move forward and grapples with regret over not having the chance to say goodbye. Alternating verse and prose depict Sage’s present-day navigating new and uncomfortable experiences while going back and forth between her divorced parents’ homes alongside memories with her best friend and the imagined future she wishes they had together: “We would be fantasizing about first kisses, first loves/ Dreaming about going to high school one day.” These brief yet poignant vignettes drive home the immediacy of Sage’s grief as well as the importance of remaining attune to one’s emotions in this tender and heartbreaking interpretation of loss. Sage is Black; supporting characters are racially diverse. Ages 10–14. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (Feb.)

Dream a Dress, Dream a Poem: Dressmaker and Poet, Myra Viola Wilds

“Dream a world, dream a time,/ and the story of a girl./ Dream Myra Viola Wilds/ dressmaker long ago.” Mellifluous verse from Johnson James chronicles the life of dressmaker and poet Wilds (1875–1935) from the Kentucky town “where dreams went unfulfilled” to a city where she eventually soars. There, Wilds becomes a dressmaker of formal frocks “fancy, frilly, even funny,/ looking sweet like flowery honey.” The close work damages her eyesight, but “Myra’s art could still be made,” her medium turning from dressmaking to poetry. In stunning saturated colorblock illustrations that foreground Wilds’s work and transformation, Ejaita plays with scale and proportion. Characters appear in colorful silhouettes. More about the figure, and two of her poems, is included. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)

Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer

“The first time James Baldwin read a book, the words clung to him like glitter.” Harris and James home in on the emotional core of the author’s upbringing in this moving work about Baldwin (1924–1987). Beginning pages depict his early life—his doting mother, the abundant siblings under his care, his love of reading, and his preacher stepfather, who displayed fury “toward Jimmy’s books and all the things he saw burning in the world.” Sensate lines illuminate Baldwin’s childhood experience while underscoring what drives him (“In the library, Jimmy could hear the books singing to him, shouting ‘Hallelujah!’ as joyfully as the women banging tambourines at his stepfather’s church”). After experiencing a police assault, Baldwin realizes the healing power of words—and begins writing “to heal his heart.” Thickly stroked oil-on-board illustrations have a dreamlike quality as they emphasize the love of words as a cornerstone of Baldwin’s life. Back matter, which includes biographical information and creators’ notes, discusses Baldwin’s queer identity. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)

Knucklehead

Poet and educator Keith (How the Boogeyman Became a Poet) delivers a poignant, hip-hop-fueled collection of poetry that’s equal parts memoir, love letter, and rallying cry to Black boys. Often marginalized by society and labeled a “knucklehead” as a child, Keith highlights in this powerfully affirming assemblage the ability to use language as an essential force for rising above various societal challenges. Throughout, the self-proclaimed nerd (“for real for real, I wanna be known as that artsy-fartsy intellect”) tackles topics surrounding toxic masculinity, police violence, and generational trauma and invokes “the spirit of everything African within me” to declare freedom from these issues using varying poetic styles. Keith’s personal journey—including his adolescence as a Black gay youth living a camouflaged existence where “girl-friends were my girlfriend” and the freedom that came with living “onstage, unafraid”—is interwoven with poems depicting other Black boys’ treatment in a society that marks them from birth as targets. Searing language and palpable messaging permeate this dazzling, from-the-heart poetry collection that’s sure to inspire the eponymous knuckleheads and beyond to find their voice and use it for liberation. Ages 14–up. Agent: Annie Hwang, Ayesha Pande Literary. (Feb.)

(S)Kin

Fifteen-year-old Marisol—a soucouyant, or shape-shifting witch, who turns into a flying fireball once a month and feeds on other people’s life forces—longs to escape her magical legacy and wishes she could have a different life. Far away from the monsters and myths back home in the Caribbean and trying to forge a new path in New York City, she and her mother eke out an existence working at a bakery owned by their boss and landlord, Jean-Pierre. Meanwhile, Genevieve, a 17-year-old Black and white dancer living with a painful skin condition that keeps her up at night, struggles to juggle the demands of high school and her boyfriend Micah’s jealousy. The arrival of a new nanny for her white father and stepmother’s twin newborns compels Genevieve to discover a hidden connection to her absent mother, her cultural roots, and Marisol. Using gripping verse, Zoboi (Nigeria Jones) delves into each teen’s inner turmoil, tackling themes of misogynoir, colorism, and immigration via complicated mother-daughter dynamics. The girls’ shifting perspectives appear on alternating sides of the book’s pages, only combining once they meet; an ambiguous resolution rounds out this searing exploration of personal growth and self-discovery. Ages 13–up. Agent: Georgia Bodnar, Noyan Literary. (Feb.)

Soggy Like Cush Cush

In Pierre’s emotionally satisfying debut, which celebrates Creole culture, young Petite Marie broods during a stormy day at her grandmother’s home: “I wanna do something. But the weather’s terrible.” Gran-moman replies, “It’s jus’ soggy like a bowl of cush cush.... Dere’s plenty we can do.” Out and about, they are greeted warmly, their time and generosity met with affectionate mutuality as they take okra and tea to a sick friend, pick up shrimp, and help pack food donations. At a final stop, Gran-moman reminds Petite Marie that “dere’s always somethin’ you can do,” and they ride home to the sounds of zydeco just as the sun peeks out. Uroda’s use of contrasting colors conveys the big power of small actions and the bolstering effect of community. Characters are portrayed with brown skin. An author’s note and recipe conclude. Ages 3–6. (Feb.)