My Monticello

Product Information

Fitzgerald, Isaac (September 28, 2021). "It's Never Too Late to Publish a Debut Book and Score a Netflix Deal". The New York Times . Retrieved October 30, 2021. My Monticello is a near-future apocalypse-esque tale which is all too easily imagined in the current era. White supremacists have hounded residents of Charlottesville out of their homes and the group seek refuge in Thomas Jefferson's plantation home as the supremacist hordes descend upon them.

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson review: hunted by a My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson review: hunted by a

What brave writing--for its willingness to seek the perfect form and the perfect word with which to tell these stories, even if it means telling the story in a non-standard way. Guernica: You skirt an edge, particularly in “Control Negro” and “My Monticello,” between the present and a very near future, where what’s come to pass feels both unthinkable and also completely, frighteningly possible. We also see, in “My Monticello,” glimpses of what has occurred, including the Unite the Right rally and the murder of Heather Heyer. Can you talk about these gestures and the connections you make between our current reality and an imagined near future?

Media Reviews

And Monticello, where they stop on their way to the Piedmont Mountains, is the slave plantation of one of the founding fathers of America, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Da’Naisha is a descendant of Jefferson through his historically documented affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. That Johnson chooses to make her protagonist a descendent of Jefferson reveals the twin legacies of the man in contemporary America: Da’Naisha embodies the desire for freedom, but she is also cursed by the legacy of slavery. Johnson: Books come out so long after you’ve written them. When I first wrote “My Monticello,” it was maybe a year out from August 12, 2017 and a lot of things hadn’t happened yet. There hadn’t been the storming of the Capitol. This very concerted assault on democracy hadn’t been waged yet. The [2020] election hadn’t yet taken place. I had imagined the novella would be more fantastical than it actually became — even the way that storms and weather have changed in a short time since then seems dramatic, not to mention the global pandemic. In a way, we’ve become closer to some of the predicaments in the story. This was unfortunately another example of a fantastic premise not being fulfilled to the extent that it perhaps could have been (in my opinion). The main character, Da'Naisha is a descend of Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, creating an obvious link between their surroundings and her own personal history. She is also hunkering down amidst all this violence with her current boyfriend, grandmother and her ex, which gives rise to multiple issues during the story. I felt that the author focused too much on the wide cast of supporting characters which left less time than I liked spent with Da'Naisha and developing her character and story. This interview is a sort of homecoming for Johnson, whose first published short story “Control Negro” appeared in Guernica after our editors read it in the slush. “Control Negro” went on to be chosen by Roxane Gay for the Best American Short Stories 2018 and read on radio by LeVar Burton as part of PRI’s Selected Shorts series, and is included in the new collection. I spoke with Johnson from her home in Charlottesville. My Monticello is a 2021 book written by debut author Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, published October 5, 2021 by Henry Holt and Co. The books consists of five short stories and a novella. [1] Contents [ edit ]

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson review - The Guardian

Guernica: In many ways, the subject matter your stories and characters explore are both the most intractable and the most urgent issues of our time. Given this, where would you say your work — and your characters — land on the spectrum of hope and despair? Announcing the Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards". National Book Critics Circle. 2022-01-21 . Retrieved 2022-06-06. Lillian Smith Book Awards Recognize Short Story Collection, Nonfiction Book for Furthering Social Justice | UGA Libraries". www.libs.uga.edu . Retrieved 2022-06-06.Da’Naisha is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Jefferson’s “darker but not very dark never-wife,” whose six children were all fathered by the man who held her in bondage. The refugees fleeing from violent white supremacists establish a settlement in the home their ancestors were forced to build. The plot is one of the novella’s greatest strengths; through it, Johnson examines climate change and racism, as well as interracial relationships and alliances. This combination of qualities may well be the product of wisdom and experience accumulated over time: Johnson has lived and worked in Charlottesville, Virginia for over twenty years, teaching art to public school elementary students. She recently described herself as a “50-year-old literary debutant,” with the publication of her much-anticipated debut collection, and the announcement of a deal with Netflix. One might also argue that it took time for the literary world to catch up to Johnson and her extraordinarily timely stories, all uncannily prescient in evoking how a warming planet and unrestrained racism combine to bring existential dread to a fever pitch.

MY MONTICELLO | READ BY A FULL CAST | Macmillan Audio MY MONTICELLO | READ BY A FULL CAST | Macmillan Audio

This utterly absorbing novel – already set for a Netflix adaptation – is thus not just a meditation of how the brutal past of slavery still has a potent legacy in contemporary America; it also portrays the redemptive powers of love and care: “Why is it we love what we love?” Da’Naisha ponders near the end. “I felt such love at that moment, for every soul in that place, because they were like me and different. Because we’d become a part of one another.” The First Street neighbourhood has a tight, communal spirit: “Older kids keeping an eye on the younger ones,” Da’Naisha observes, “like we were all cousins.” And this spirit endures once they’ve been uprooted from their homes. As they make their journey through Monticello and into the mountain, the group agrees to “collect and share all the food and drink we found on the mountain”. Library of Virginia Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards". www.lva.virginia.gov . Retrieved 2022-08-22.I was a public school teacher for 20 years and I’m a huge proponent of community. I’ve had classes where all kinds of people who might not otherwise have a lot in common create some sort of relationship and unity. I definitely tried to highlight that in the book. I really used the ideas of teaching to shape how my protagonist, Da’Naisha Love, tries to get her group of neighbours to work together in this very tense situation. She has them do what a teacher would do on the first day of school – they commit to a list of things they all do together, to get by. This story definitely has its merits and I learned a lot through reading it, but as a piece of entertainment (selfishly my principal goal in reading this one) it didn’t quite knit together for me. After a hectic beginning it's slow to develop and though I was eventually moved by what took place it took a long time for me to reach this level of engagement. Da’Naisha is the character who is designed to draw the reader in and this did work, but dialogue is strangely absent for much of the story and when it is present it consists mainly of one-liners and the odd casual comment. Therefore, I can only award this one three stars, though I predict I might be an outlier in rating this one so modestly. Johnson: I think how we do anything is how we do everything. The way America does racism is very connected to the way America does capitalism and colonialism, and is connected to what we value and the stories that we tell ourselves. In America, it’s often about every person for themselves and the valorization of a certain kind of freedom — where your freedom can entirely infringe on someone else’s and even destroy them without penalty, particularly if you look and sound a certain way. I think that racism and the climate crisis are connected in that way. I also think that one exacerbates the other: environmental issues exacerbate racism, or are filtered through the lens of racism, in obvious ways like where a refinery is placed or where pollution ends up or, when there’s a storm, which neighborhoods have protection or where investment goes.

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson | Goodreads

Let me emphasize that I am painfully aware of the cultural problems in the US. However, I cannot rate this book and its stories highly. I just did not appreciate the writing style which in the first two stories were written in a kind of letter format. Especially in the second story, it seemed like scolding.

Book Summary

Egelman, Sarah Rachel (October 5, 2021). "My Monticello: Fiction". Book Reporter . Retrieved 2021-10-16. Having given you my opinion, I DO want you to know that the likes of Roxanne Gay, Colson Whitehead and Charles Yu have praised this book to the skies. So don't listen to me; see for yourself. An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.