Friday Black

Friday Black takes its title from the consumer holiday Black Friday, which takes place in the US on the Friday following Thanksgiving.[1] A collection of dystopian near-future short stories, the book's titular work follows its protagonist in the form of a department store salesman, as he copes with "vicious, insatiable Black Friday shoppers," while attempting to win a sales contest among employees, in order to give the prize jacket to his mother as a gift.[1][2]

Alternatively the opening piece, "The Finkelstein 5", concerns Emmanuel, who can "dial his blackness" up or down depending on his situation: down to 1.5 for an interview with a prospective employer, comfortably at 4.0 with the aid of a necktie and wing-tipped shoes, and up to 10 when his sense of vengeance bursts forth over the killing of five black children by a chainsaw-wielding white man.[1][3]

The work continues to explore a range of topics, from issues of race in the United States criminal justice system, to the plight of a teenager working to support their family after their father's disappearance, school shootings, and "a dystopian Groundhog Day in which victims of an unexplained weapon relive a single day and resort to extreme violence to cope".[2] In "Zimmer Land", the black protagonist struggles to change the narrative in a theme park where mostly white patrons savagely relish their racial prejudices under the guise of "problem-solving, judgement and justice," while "The Era" presents a schoolboy's dilemmas in a post-apocalyptic society where self-confidence comes only through the use of drugs.[4]

Adjei-Brenyah has said that as he set out to write what would eventually become his book Friday Black he sought to use a form of "magical realism" as a tool for exploring issues such as "race and the depravities of consumer culture and our collective habituation to violence."[1] Speaking to the Wall Street Journal Adjei-Brenyah reflected,

I like to work in that space where, "Is it hyperbole? I don't know." When you kill someone with a gun or a chainsaw, they're just as dead either way. When I say 'chainsaw,' you have to pay attention.[5]

As the New York Times observed, these narratives take place in "prosaic settings", such as malls, hospitals or residential areas, but which are rendered "unfamiliar by adding a surreal, disorienting twist," and employed in the exploration of contemporary issues such as abortion, racism, commercialism, and cyclical violence.[1]

Throughout, the book variously explores the theme of black experience, in a way that works primarily to inspire "empathy for the marginalized and the feared".[6]

The book received generally favorable reviews. The review aggregator website Book Marks reported that 80% of critics gave the book a "rave" review, while the other 20% of the critics expressed "positive" impressions, based on a sample of 15 reviews.[7] Publishers Weekly along with the New York Post listed Friday Black as one of the best books of the week.[6][8] Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post both named it among the top releases of Fall 2018.[9][10]

The daily student newspaper The Harvard Crimson gave it 4.5 out of five stars, calling the book "an ingenious attack on American society."[11] Kirkus Reviews described the book as a work where "edgy humor and fierce imagery coexist ... with shrewd characterization and humane intelligence, inspired by volatile material sliced off the front pages,"[4] while Newsday praised it as "caustically inventive", with a pervasive anger communicated through "nuance, grace and a probing empathy".[12] Writer George Saunders dubbed the work as "an excitement and a wonder: strange, crazed, urgent and funny."[13]

In response to Friday Black, the National Book Foundation named Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah among their "5 Under 35 Authors" for 2018, chosen by author Colson Whitehead.[14][15] The book was included on the long list for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.[16]

Friday Black is the recipient of the $75,000 2019 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award[17] and shortlisted for the 2019 Dylan Thomas Prize.[18]

• Index of racism-related articles
• List of dystopian literature

• Official website of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's New Book: 'Friday Black' (audio). National Public Radio. October 22, 2018.
• 5 Story Collections That Will Make You a Better Writer, Picked by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Publishers Weekly. October 19, 2018.