My Monticello

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Her short story “Control Negro” was anthologized in Best American Short Stories, guest edited by Roxane Gay, and read live by LeVar Burton as part of PRI’s Selected Shorts series. Johnson dedicates the book to "my parents, who had me in Virginia and made it home," and her deep connection to the state — its land, its landmarks, its history, its cruelty and its beauty — thrums throughout. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, "My Monticello," tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. 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. All six stories are universally powerful but the showpiece of this collection is the title novella "My Monticello ''.

My Monticello: 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 | TIME My Monticello: 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 | TIME

A group holding Nazi banners poured on to the university carrying lit torches, chanting “Into the oven” and “Jews will not replace us” and “White lives matter”. 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. We witness the tension and unravelling of the group caused by their fear, pain and panic and then how they come together as one in a bid for survival. So I played with that: Da’Naisha is studying to be a teacher, and I used a lot of the things teachers do to create community.

Our narrator, Da'Naisha Love, escapes the violence and finds a momentary refugee in Monticello, which happens to be Thomas Jefferson's historic plantation. We also see, in “My Monticello,” glimpses of what has occurred, including the Unite the Right rally and the murder of Heather Heyer. While I still enjoyed it, the narrative is told in a first-person plural ("we") and this kept pushing me away from getting at the crux of the story or from understanding the main characters with the idea of we in mind.

Reviews of My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson - BookBrowse

Although this is a bit too similar to Parable of the Sower, against which I judge just about any dystopian fiction, the setting and timeliness can’t be beat. My introverted self found myself wishing for a book club so I could discuss these stories with others. Monticello is a Palladian mansion in Charlottesville, Virginia, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson who is estimated to have had about 130 slaves there. In a daring and fierce debut work of fiction—the likes of which comes along once in a generation—Virginia’s landscapes, emblems, and Thomas Jefferson’s historic plantation set the stage for a cast of unforgettable characters fighting for their right to exist in America.Here in Charlottesville, that’s Thomas Jefferson — Monticello, Jefferson’s plantation home, is right on the hill, a few miles from town and about ten minutes from my house. Throughout the course of the novella, Da'Naisha also reflects on racism in America, slavery, white supremacy, and interracial relationship.

My Monticello - Wikipedia

After the rally in 2017, we had a year of reckoning in Charlottesville, with a lot of public talks about race. 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. The day of the rally I remained home with my then 11-year-old son, about half a mile from the epicentre of the violence; still the rally dominated our day.It meant putting myself in the same mental space as my characters, being isolated and run out of home. It made me think, Well, if I share this with other people, if I say now this is true and this is an issue and also these feelings are real, then they could share them with me and I wouldn’t have to feel like I had to fix it alone. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson's 'My Monticello' explores America's racist past — and present — with grace". I think that’s why I’m a public school teacher: I kind of love the person who’s a mess, and I love the person who is difficult. Octavia Butler was revolutionary in taking the tropes of speculative fiction and other genre fiction and using them to think about gender, race and identity in really interesting ways.