I knew very little about this book when I picked it up so I'm surprised by how much I loved it. It's a book of loosely related satirical short stories centered around racial tensions, which is enough to sell me on the book on its own. But I loved it because it was just so darkly funny. I laughed a lot, but felt really guilty about it.

The opening story is about what happens when a white adult savagely murders five unarmed black children and gets acquitted using a nonsensical defense involving his right to freedom. Another favorite was about a Black Friday in the not so distant future in which trampling deaths are so common that stores have a designated area set aside to collect the bodies to allow for uninterrupted shopping time. How is any of this funny? I have no idea, but it was. Fans of Black Mirror will probably like this.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s versatility is the strength of this collection. He quite comfortably moves from arresting satire, to what could be described as whimsical sci-fi, and back again. In this way, there’s something for everyone here.

The Finkelstein Five is, for me, the stand-out story of the collection and Adjei-Brenyah’s evocation of code-switching, black masculinity and protest actually brought me to tears. This story is an authentic and raw depiction of what it is to be young and black: black readers will be all too familiar with its nuances; others may find that this is the narrative that shows them what this is like.

Wow! Who said there’s no such thing as black folklore? I’ve just finished a review copy of Friday Black and it was equally enchanting and terrifying at the same time. I don’t know how anyone - regardless of color or race - living in the current societal climate could read this and not get carried away by the “what ifs” and “could it really happens”. I’m not usually in to the fantasy genre but the author has a magical way of taking very real issues and carrying them out to the most extreme levels. It really helps shed a light on just how messed up things are and how much worse they could be if we don’t do better. Heaven help us!

I have gone back and forth on my review for this novel. I have some much to say and so many feeling that I'm not sure I can even put them into words to articulate them correctly.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's 'Friday Black' is a master piece. These twelve stories are like anything I have ever read. The Finklestein 5, Zimmer Land, Light Spitter and Through the Flash are absolutely astounding. Defiantly keeping Adjei-Brenyah on your radar for future works.

Je ne suis pas spécialement fan des nouvelles, mais ce recueil m'intéressait ; enfin c'est surtout parce que sa sortie avait l'air d'être tellement attendue. Il n'en fallait pas plus pour piquer ma curiosité. Donc, je ne cherche même pas à savoir de quoi le recueil parle et je le demande sur NetGalley.

Mal m'en a pris. J'ai trouvé les nouvelles si violentes, si anticipation (en tout cas, comme je m'imaginais les romans que l'on appelait d'anticipation dans ma jeunesse et dont les couvertures me choquaient toujours), si sanglantes que je ne peux pas dire que j'ai apprécié. Et je ne savais pas avant de lire (évidemment) que l'auteur était fan de science-fiction et de fantasy. Je n'aurais certainement pas demandé ce livre. Mais je l'ai terminé, en souffrant beaucoup.

Et pourtant, il commençait bien. La première nouvelle, The Finkelstein 5, bien que très violente et poignante, était pleine d'un humour grinçant bien jubilatoire. Elle traite du racisme d'une manière originale que j'ai beaucoup aimée. D'autres histoires évoquent l'expérience de l'auteur quand il travaillait comme vendeur dans un magasin de vêtements. Même si je les ai trouvées dissonantes (je me comprends), elles étaient plutôt réussies. En revanche, les nouvelles de science-fiction ou de fantasy (je n'ai pas encore compris la différence) sont trop hermétiques, ou d'une violence insupportable et se résument à des bagarres confuses et incohérentes. Je n'ai vraiment pas compris où l'auteur voulait en venir.

Sur les douze nouvelles, j'en ai apprécié plus de la moitié à des degrés divers : très originales (en particulier The Finkelstein 5 et Zimmer Land), émouvante (Things My Mother Said), intéressante mais sordide quand même (Lark Street où un homme a une conversation avec les fœtus de ses jumeaux avortés), trop dystopique pour moi (The Era), trop violente et trop alambiquée (Through the Flash).

L'écriture de Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah est brillante, mais j'ai eu du mal avec certaines nouvelles car le sujet m'était complètement indifférent. Donc, un avis mitigé de ma part même si je reconnais à l'auteur une très grande originalité, que je comprends les éloges lues à son propos et que je ne regrette pas de l'avoir lu. Comme dans tous les recueils de nouvelles, il y a du bon et du moins bon.

I was quite shaken when I finished reading several of the stories in this collection. The Finkelstein 5, The Lion & the Spider, and Light Spitter are stories that will linger in my mind, and that I will return to again to try to understand their origin in the writer’s mind and life, and their intersection with my experience.

I was less taken with the stories set in the Prominent Mall. I don’t think the quality is uneven; I think I was less emotionally hooked by them.

It is very exciting to know that this is a debut collection, and that we have so much more to look forward to from Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

Stunning, timely collection of short stories. Often, the blurbs for a book don't reflect what's within the covers. Here, I would say all the high praise the book has received is justified. Each story is a gem to be savored. I won't write more as I am working on a complete review to be published at PopMatters. I will add the link when done.

Dark and disturbing, the tales of Friday Black will tug at you with their relevance. Violence seeps into the edges of these surreal short stories as they navigate worlds that are not our own, but are familiar nonetheless. You will catch yourself wondering if this is the road we're all heading down, towards murderous Black Friday shopping expeditions and the like, but the more you wonder, the more you'll realize that Adjei-Brenyah has expertly sketched our own modern condition.

Terrific debut collection that will make you think. The best part about a short story collection is that it allows you to dip in and out and still fully experience a writer's range and view point. This certainly does that. The stories range across genre but the perspective is always clear. One or two of these might strike you more than the others (no spoilers because each should be experienced) but be assured all of them show mature and intriguing expression. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Hard to think of anything to say about this powerful book that won’t sound trite. “Powerful” - already said. “A book for our times” -yes, indeed. Thought-provoking, astounding, must-read..... on and on I go with cliches. One more: It’s a masterpiece.

Adjei-Brenyah reveals the racism and danger Black people face every day by putting Black characters in heightened, surreal situations. Friday Black is haunting, thought-provoking, and brilliant. Some of these stories will stick with me for a long time.

Like the TV show Black Mirror. You'll be uncomfortable, angry, sad, and disgusted. It's impossible to read this book and not feel something.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a star on the rise. In Friday Black, he focuses on only a few topics - enough for the reader to feel variety, but similar so themes are built upon and expanded. There are repeated references to extreme consumerism, the murder of Trayvon Martin, and relationships between father and son. I especially liked "Lark Street", where Adjei-Brenyah explores the mourning process of a young man when his girlfriend has an abortion. In "The Lion & the Spider" a son becomes a man by learning he can't depend on his father, as told through an African folktale. My heart broke at the end of this story.

Adjei-Brenyah changes his writing and voice to serve the story he's telling. You won't feel like you're reading a memoir. This is no one trick pony. There's depth. I'm eagerly awaiting what else Adjei-Brenyah may share with the world. I know whatever it is, I'll be pre-ordering it.

Stories: 5 stars
Writing/Prose: 5 stars
Short Stories collective theme: 5 stars

Reading Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s collection, Friday Black, was like sticking my finger in a light socket. The stories tackle so many hot-button issues—the murders of Black people by police officers and White people, abortion, neoliberalism, dangerously competitive consumerism—in such strong language that readers can’t hide from the truths they reveal about American society.

Some of the standouts from this collection include:

“The Finkelstein 5.” This story made me sit up and take notice. As the first story in the collection, “The Finkelstein 5” explores a possible response to the callous miscarriages of justice that allow White people to kill Black people with near impunity. The violence is dialed up to 11, to highlight the blatant racism that guides the process from seeing a Black person or group of Black people, to attacking the Black people, to trial, to acquittal. But this story adds a vengeful coda to the usual tale, in which Black people start killing White people while shouting the names of the Finkelstein 5, the five Black children murdered by a White man who was “frightened” and “trying to protect his children.”

“Zimmer Land.” In this story, Isaiah works at a twisted theme park that purports to help people pursue exploration of race and justice. What that means, no matter how Isaiah’s bosses dress it up in academic-sounding language, is that people of color are hired to be “murdered” by guests. The employees suit up in protective gear and blood squibs, where they are confronted over and over again by the White guests who pay to play out their fantasies of killing “terrorists” and “thugs.” Isaiah is asked over repeatedly why he still works there. The money is good, just good enough to stay invested in the system. Not far underneath the plot is a biting satire about how everyone plays into the violent status quo.

“Light Spitter.” I found this story the most puzzling of the collection. After one character murders another and kills himself, they become ghostly presences haunting the library where they died and the room of a boy who is contemplating becoming a mass murderer. Dierdra, the murder victim, will become an angel if she can do good deeds. Neither of them is sure why William, known as “Fuckton,” is there. He killed two people before he committed suicide. Both of them argue about how to help the potential mass murderer. Dierdra messes up at first with her gentle, do-gooder approach. In the end, murderer and victim have to work together to stop more deaths. The story tackles the question of how to stop mass murderers, but I’m not sure I can agree with its conclusions about how to do that. Also, it just seems cruel to trap Dierdra together with the boy who killed her.

“Lark Street.” While I was interested in the other stories in this collection, I did not like this story because of its treatment of abortion. The story raises a good point about the consequences of abortion, but I am staunchly pro-Choice. It’s a conflict of politics rather than the quality of the story.

For me, a White reader, reading these stories was like being invited to witness an experience of American and Black life that I only knew about academically or tangentially. Friday Black gave be a front-row seat to the profound, righteous fury felt by people of color for centuries. Even the stories set in the future reflects a deep frustration with the American status quo. Every story packs a emotional punch that angers, depresses, and illuminates. These stories feel like the shout that has been welling up for a long time and needs to be heard.

Fierce and invigorating, the stories in Friday Black demand attention like a slap in the face.

This collection inhabits the ‘borderlands’ between genres, to borrow a term from Michael Chabon, sort of literary, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, maybe all at the same time. In one story, it’s hard to tell whether the backdrop is a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic wasteland, or just an ordinary shopping mall. Another takes a Groundhog Day scenario to violent extremes, asking how would people really behave if there were zero consequences, every day ending with a reset? Contemporary issues like race, or rampant consumerism, are explored in surreal and/or futuristic settings.

The blend of satire, cultural commentary and high-concept genre entertainment that Adjei-Brenyah employs here brings to mind TV anthology series Black Mirror or the film Get Out. It’s a style perfectly suited to the short story format: each one is a quick, sharp jab that leaves behind a powerful impression quite disproportionate to the time it takes to read. There are no dull moments here, and while a few of the stories were stand-outs, the whole collection is consistently great.

4.5 stars rounded up for sheer gutsiness.

..and this is how you write cutting-edge fiction about the world we live in! Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut is bold, powerful, innovative, and poetic. Every other blurb is randomly claiming that the author of the respective book has a unique voice - this author actually does, and this fall, his short stories are mandatory reading.

"Friday Black" encompasses 12 stories, many of them dealing with racism, consumerism, violence, and the culture of egotism and hate - this book is a comment on today's America (which doesn't mean that some of the issues discussed aren't prevalent in other countries as well). What makes this collection so special is the way the author approaches those topics, introducing fantastical elements, projecting the consequences of the cultural climate on invented scenarios and highlighting tendencies by smartly employing hyperbole. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah wants his readers to look straight into the abyss: A white man kills black kids with a chainsaw and claims self-defense, Black Friday turns a shopping mall into the battleground of the zombie apocalypse, "Good" is now a drug for school children, and there's an amusement park that could have been invented by horror director Eli Roth.

On Twitter, Roxane Gay stated that if you like Childish Gambino's "This is America" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjW...), you will also love this - and I see where this comparison is coming from. Also, both of these works of art punch you in the face and leave you in complete shock and awe. In case you need more comparisons: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's voice is as recognizable as that of Ottessa Moshfegh, and his disregard for narrative conventions reminds me of Carmen Maria Machado.

Oh, and in case I haven't made this clear enough by now: You should READ THIS BOOK. The whole thing is fantastic, but especially "The Finkelstein 5" and "Zimmer Land".

From the first story, Adjei-Brenyah shows he pulls no punches, and that’s what some of his stories feel like, a gut punch. His writing is as funny as it is serious. He creates absurd situations that are all too close to reality. He writes abrasive satire as humorous as it is abrasive. He takes on such giant topics as racism, consumerism, and school shootings without flinching. If you like biting satire, you won’t want to miss this book.

Adjei-Brenyah's writing is sharp in this collection of dark and inventive stories that utilize surreal situations to highlight real issues in our society.

The stories in this collection form a perfect dozen short stories.  Every single story conveys a (capital T) Truth.  Adjei-Brenyah quickly builds worlds with his taut and nuanced prose.  The first story out of the gate, The Finklestein 5, punched me in the gut and didn't let go.  I had to sit with that story for several days before reading the next.  I am still thinking about it several weeks later.  Friday Black, the titular story, takes the reader on a dark and twisty ride into the world of retail and retail work.  I read that story on Labor Day, and it couldn't have been a more perfect fit.  Finally, I want to highlight the final story, Through the Flash, which addresses power, community, self-efficacy and personal choice in a Twilight Zone-like setting.  Adjei-Brenyah's unique and varied voice knocked me off my feet.

REVIEW
Anjei-Brenyah's debut short story collection, Black Friday, is nothing short of a marvel. Individual stories like "Zimmer Land" and "The Finkelstein 5" will stand out on their own, but the 12 stories fit together as a strong package The author explores themes of racism and the cost of rampant consumerism in America. Anjei-Brenyah is certainly one to watch.

PRAISE
"Tackling issues like criminal justice, consumerism, and racism, these timely stories are searching for humanity in a brutal world. The collection is both heartbreaking and hopeful."
—The Millions

"The stories in the collection have a dystopian bent and are told with dark humor and a clear-eyed understanding of human failings."
—Poets & Writers

AUTHOR
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is from Spring Valley, New York. He graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Guernica, Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, Printer's Row, Gravel, and The Breakwater Review, where he was selected by ZZ Packer as the winner of the 2nd Annual Breakwater Review Fiction Contest. Friday Black is his first book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Wow. Rarely have I read such a timely collection of short stories. Echoes of Toni Morrison, George Saunders, and the Black Lives Matter movement make this an urgent and devastating.