Friday Black
Ratings54
Average rating4.2
The first story in this collection (The Finkelstein 5) was really powerful and visceral. There were a couple of stories that suffered from the same problem I had with Chain Gang All Star, they were more universe exploration than story, which is just not my thing. There's a story with ghosts (?) of aborted fetuses talking which was really uncomfortable but not in a good way.
There's no questioning that Adjei-Brenyah is very skilled at creating universes and giving characters their unique voices but ultimately I just think his storytelling style isn't really for me.
Some fantastic short stories in this collection, so fantastic that I've read a few in independent magazines and rereading them was just as thrilling as the first time. I was excited to see the twists and turns again, to theorize again, to see what I remembered correctly.
Everything here is, at the very least, pretty fucking good, and the best work here is so good it's top 10 short stories ever written, probably. Wow.
I was super conflicted about halfway through this book, because a lot of these stories are super super good, and some of them are just kind of meh.
When I had finished The Finklestein 5 I had thought to myself “yeah that was pretty great!”. Five or so days later I found myself explaining the story in its entirety to my coworker, down to explaining how the story creates tension with the reader through its pacing.
I adored The Era, and found myself quoting it around friends, because something was just special about reading that story from the viewpoint of an innocent child. Imagine “The Giver”, but told through the lense of an actual child.
The next three stories didnt hit as hard though. Zimmerland just wasnt able to evoke the same sort of emotional response that The Finklestein five did, Lark Street was too confusing for too long to make me enjoy any of it too much, and while I liked The Hospital Where the most out of these three I just mentioned, I still think this book has better entries.
The Lion and the Spider and Light Spitter were both incredible. There was a line in the former that reminded me of actual real conversations that ive witnessed and heard in real life. My old roommate tells this story (more times than id like to have heard it, and way more times than hed like to admit) about his old boss at a catering job he worked at, where they were talking about one of their coworkers, who they both consistently got along with. At some point this dude quit his job, and this boss that my roommate talks about all the time said something along the lines of “I liked that guy , but what a piece of shit”. This coworker who was the topic of the conversation was black, and this boss Im telling you about didnt actually call him a piece of shit he called him a racial slur, but in the same way youd call someone a piece of shit. This is sort of the inverse of what happens in The Lion and the Spider, but the same sort of idea can be drawn from both interactions. If youve read the story you know which line im talking about. Very normal people walk among us, and some of those people are racists. Some of these racists have worked with black people in the past, and theyve probably used these experiences to alleviate some of that racism in their head, even if its in an incredibly backwards manner. Light Spitter was a lot less realistic and relatable, but it drew me in immediatley and I very much enjoyed what it was doing. I have a lot less to say about this one but it was also very good.
Through The Flash was pretty interesting too, but it honestly made me more excited to read Chain Gang All-Stars more than it got any sort of emotional response out of me.
If youve read this book you probably noticed I skipped a few stories. If you want to read this and havent yet im gonna put this next section under a spoiler tag. Nothing about the plot of these stories will be revealed, however I think what im going to talk about was a nice suprise for me when I was reading, so I have no reaosn to believe that it wouldnt be for you too.
Spoiler”Friday Black,” “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by Ice King,” and “In Retail” are all incredibly good stories, but my experience with enjoying these was a little more complicated than it should have been. When I first read the story that the book was named after, I thought it was fine. Nothing about the story as a standalone short story is spectacular. It's only when you realize that this mall that this guy works at is a mall that people in the other stories I mentioned also work at that it really clicks. The Ice King story might be my favorite story in the entire book, even if I'm willing to admit that it's not nearly the best one in the book. Something about the internal dialogue of what is an everyday customer interaction for literally anyone that works with the public is so fascinating and relatable at the same time. I could not tell you how many times I've been working with a customer, and I've sat there and made up some skillful reason for every word and mannerism I've spoken and presented for that individual sale. There is something hilarious about Ice King that you just won't be able to appreciate unless you've been Ice King before. A guy who wants to be the very best at his dead-end job. A guy who revels in doing what is, by all means, important work but work that, at the end of the day, is unfulfilling to anyone who wants to make something of themselves. A guy who has very clearly outgrown his workplace mentally and stays there anyway for reasons you'd only understand if you were Ice King. “In Retail” was also super relatable in this sense. The “Lucy” person our character keeps bringing up is someone we are all familiar with, even if the circumstance isn't exactly a 1:1 reflection of the actual situation you're thinking of right now. Rather than your coworker committing suicide, maybe you just noticed the slow and steady mental decline of someone you've worked with for years, or maybe there's just someone that you work with that everyone agrees is so stupid that you've gone and made their name into a verb. And then you realize that there are people all over America that feel this way. All over the world even, and then you feel a little less insane about yourself.
I was too lazy to spellcheck this so I made AI do it for me, sorry if any of this looks super strange and doesnt make sense
Some of the stories in this collection were phenomenal, visceral writing - speculative fiction at its very best - but the rest varied between forgettable and downright bad. I would say it's worth it for the good ones.
Favourites: Through the Flash, Zimmer Land, Friday Black, The Finkelstein Five
Stand out ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ stories:
Through The Flash (this is the story I picked the book up for and it did not disappoint)
The Finkelstein 5 (made me physically SICK)
Düstere, sarkastisch angehauchte Anthologie mit den Themen Rassismus, Konsum, Gesellschaft, Dystopie.
Viele Geschichten fühlten sich wie ein Setup für etwas größeres an. Wie ein Pitch für einen vollen Roman. Und endeten gefühlt zu fruh, wobei ich hier noch nicht sicher bin ob das was schlechtes ist. Drei Stories werden mir definitiv in Erinnerung bleiben, und die anderen sind , bis auf 2 Ausnahmen immer noch sehr gut geschrieben.
Würde gerne mehr von dem Autor lesen.
Every story in this collection is great. The opening story, “The Finkelstein 5” is alone worth the price of admission.
I'm a huge fan of this style of satire through urban fantasy/magical realism. It works so well.
3.5 Uneven, from distasteful sympathies (the anti-abortion Lark Street and the entitled white male murderer redemption story Light Spitter) — to scintillating acuity
Finkelstein Five is a masterpiece and everyone should read this collection for that story alone.
It's less than 200 pages, so theoretically you could read Friday Black in a single day or even sitting. But if you're like me, you'll have to pace yourself, because most of the stories are dark and intense. I will say, I'm pretty sensitive to violence, so my “this is gratuitous” threshold is probably low. I'm too squeamish to derive much other than discomfort from gruesome descriptions. I think Adjei-Brenyah does horror really well. He knows what information to provide readers and how to provide it. He knows how to lull you into a false sense of security or familiarity. He knows how to mix building suspense and confirming your fears. He knows what he's doing. It's just that a lot of what he's doing makes me physically recoil.I was really disturbed and impressed by the string of retail stories. I liked how he spaced out the first and second, to surprise you by circling back to the same setting and characters. I liked how the tone mellowed, the first one rampant with rabid zombie-esque brawls, but the third featuring a sweet and fulfilling interaction with a sincerely thankful customer.I also liked how Adjei-Brenyah looked at what it means to excel at something that sucks the life out of you. How do you walk away from a job you're good at when you need to feed your family, no matter how much said job erodes your wellbeing? How does this type of work impact one's psyche?Friday Black is definitely lacking in complex women and queer characters compared to, say, N.K. Jemisin's recent anthology [b:How Long ‘til Black Future Month? 40855636 How Long ‘til Black Future Month? N.K. Jemisin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1535169689s/40855636.jpg 63632161]. There are exceptions, like the last story. But in general, such characters are kept peripheral. That said, the text as a whole is searing and impactful. Reading Friday Black is like watching Black Mirror, but less dumb.
A really impressive debut and a quick but recommended read! The Finklestein 5 was stunning - I'm definitely sharing with my ELA classes and hope to get this in front of students for discussion - so much to unpack and study here. Same with Zimmerland - so much to grapple with. I liked the zombie consumerism theme of Friday Black and the 2 other retail stories taking place in that world. Not all of the works were as strong, but I found myself thinking about them frequently and wanting to discuss them with other readers. The last story is the most graphically violent, though it made sense to the story it's certainly stomach-turning.
It might be cliche to call a book a “modern classic,” but this is a modern classic. “Friday Black”, “The Finklestein 5”, and “Zimmer Land” should all become staples of short fiction curriculum and anthologies.
It might be cliche to call a book a “modern classic,” but this is a modern classic. “Friday Black”, “The Finklestein 5”, and “Zimmer Land” should all become staples of short fiction curriculum and anthologies.
Short story collections are always a mixed bag. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut collection Friday Black is no exception. Some of these stories are entirely passable; however, the very best stories make up for these flat ones. They are brutally honest and visceral. They primarily tackle issues of racism and consumerism (hence the title), but do so while mixing the horror of Shirley Jackson with equal parts science fiction and cutting-edge contemporary fiction. The pieces that shine in this collection do so with such vibrance and originality that one cannot easily deny Adjei-Brenyah's future as an accomplished writer.
Breathtaking. Really: I found myself forgetting to breathe a few times.
The stories are hit or miss. The hits, though, are wallops; frightening; the kind of writing where you're not entirely sure if it's fiction, where you gulp and realize that you can envision the U.S. sliding into as reality. Dystopian not in the zombies-and-mutants sense but something much worse instead: worlds built from indifference, shallowness, blind self-centeredness.
Race plays a central role in some, but not all, of the stories. When it does, if you're Black, you'll probably just nod in recognition; if you're not, you may get some glimpses into what everyday life is like for some of our neighbors. You may recoil, maybe reassure yourself that things aren't really that bad. Aren't they? Take some time to ponder. And let's all of us see what we can do to move away from those possibilities.
Quick note: there is violence. Some of it is gruesome. You should read this anyway. You should read this.