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My Monticello



by
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Edition
Hardcover edition
Publisher
Macmillan
Imprint
Henry Holt (Adult)
ISBN
9781250807151
POTENTIALLY SENSITIVE AREAS
Crime: Hate Crimes , Discrimination: Racial Insensitivity/Racism , Language: Strong Language , Sexual Content: Mild Sexual Content/Themes , Violence: General
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A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a white militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America.

Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.

In “Control Negro,” hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,” a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.” Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.”

United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.

POTENTIALLY SENSITIVE AREAS
Crime: Hate Crimes , Discrimination: Racial Insensitivity/Racism , Language: Strong Language , Sexual Content: Mild Sexual Content/Themes , Violence: General

Details

Format

Print

Page Count

224

Trim Size

9 3/10" x 6"

Dewey

F

AR

0: points 0

Genre

Fic

Scholastic Reading Counts

0

JLG Release

Jan 2022

Book Genres

Realistic Fiction

Topics

Short stories. Novellas. US history. African Americans. Black people. Racism. Home. Family. Monticello, Virginia. 

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Cover Art

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Praise & Reviews

The Horn Book

In Johnson's title novella, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings leads a group escaping white supremacist violence in Charlottesville and taking refuge in Jefferson's plantation home. Also included: "Control Negro," about a university professor carrying out an experiment about racism with his own son as subject, which appeared in Best American Short Stories 2018 by guest editor Roxane Gay and read by LeVar Burton as part of PRI's Selected Shorts series. A major debut collection; with a 250,000-copy first printing.

Praise & Reviews

The Horn Book

In Johnson's title novella, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings leads a group escaping white supremacist violence in Charlottesville and taking refuge in Jefferson's plantation home. Also included: "Control Negro," about a university professor carrying out an experiment about racism with his own son as subject, which appeared in Best American Short Stories 2018 by guest editor Roxane Gay and read by LeVar Burton as part of PRI's Selected Shorts series. A major debut collection; with a 250,000-copy first printing.

Grades 11 & Up
Adult Crossover High Plus
For Grades 11 & Up
For the more advanced high school reader who is ready for adult reading, our ACH Category is a great choice. With more sophisticated and challenging themes, the 12 books in ACH open up new worlds for teen readers.
Take note: These selections often contain mature situations and language that could be considered controversial.

14 books per Year
$309.26 per Year
Interests
Fiction,Mature Readers,Novels,Realistic Fiction
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Grades 11 & Up
Adult Crossover High Plus
14 books per Year
$309.26 per Year

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