The people in the café are eyeballing him because he’s something not-white by their standards, but they can’t tell what. I’m sitting with him because he bought me breakfast. All he uses his mouth for is smoking, drinking coffee, and talking. “There’s a way these things are supposed to work,” says Paulo. Or maybe those are the rumblers of police sirens? Nothing I like the sound of, either way. Sort of coy.Īnd from even farther, I hear something else: a dissonant, gathering growl. Shut your fucking mouth! someone yells, so I take a bow and exit the stage.īut with my hand on the knob of the rooftop door, I stop and turn back and frown and listen, ’cause for a moment I hear something both distant and intimate singing back at me, basso-deep. In my head, there’s an orchestra playing “Ode to Joy” with a Busta Rhymes backbeat. Not till I’ve finished going AAAAaaaaAAAAaaaa (breath) aaaaAAAAaaaaaaa and listening to the syllable echo back at me from every nearby building face. Maybe I’ll spend it on more pants at the Goodwill down the street instead… but not yet. Got change for a wash-and-dry, just not another pair of pants to wear till they’re done. The damp of it makes my jeans feel slimy, or maybe that’s ’cause they haven’t been washed in weeks. I’m really singing to the cityscape beyond. I stand on the rooftop of a building I don’t live in and spread my arms and tighten my middle and yell nonsense ululations at the construction site that blocks my view. "A glorious fantasy." -Neil Gaiman Read Excerptįucking city. How Long 'til Black Future Month? (short story collection) Shades in Shadow: An Inheritance Triptych (e-only short fiction) The Inheritance Trilogy (omnibus edition)
Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children.
In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels.Įvery great city has a soul. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power. In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. Jemisin crafts her most incredible novel yet, a "glorious" story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City. Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K.
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