RELATIONS by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Ed. by Brew-Hammond, Nana Ekua HarperVia (464 pp.) $27.99 | Jan. 17, 2023 978-0-06-308904-4

A cross-genre anthology with a wide breadth of writing by African and African diaspora authors.

Brew-Hammond presents an anthology of works with a common theme of relations—which, she writes in an introduction, “obfuscate the convenient and comfortable narratives we tell ourselves about who we are” and “trounce boundaries erected by religion, class, race, and rhetoric.” The book collects short stories, essays, and poems, and the range is impressive. In the story “Lagos Wives Club,” New York–based author Vanessa Walters follows Simone, a woman who has moved from the U.K. to Nigeria with her husband and finds it difficult to fit in: “But seven years later, she still felt like a visitor. A foreign object. She would never be of this place.” Walters’ writing is nuanced and sensitive, and the story ends with a realistic sense of doubt and unbelonging. Rémy Ngamije’s subtly effective story “Fulbright” takes place on a flight to the U.S., where the Namibian narrator, a Fulbright scholar, is on his way to study at Columbia Law School. Ngamije does an excellent job balancing the student’s excitement (“I’ll have a hot dog on a corner. Bagels, burgers, soda, milkshakes—I might even watch an ice hockey game”) with his fears (“I worry I’ll be another Amadou Diallo…I don’t want to be another Black man waiting to become a white chalk outline on a curb somewhere”). The anthology closes with a gorgeous essay-poetry hybrid from Togolese author Ayi Renaud Dossavi-Alipoeh, who reflects beautifully on the importance of language to our lives: “We live in words as we sleep in bed….We clothe every moment of our existence with them, every form of our thoughts, every fold of our brains.” Brew-Hammond is herself an excellent author—as her own contribution, a short story, proves—and she has a great eye for quality writing; every selection in the anthology is at least solid, and most are remarkable. This is an anthology that sings, a wonderful look at the relationships and connections that sustain us, give us life, make us who we are.

Burt, Anne Counterpoint (288 pp.) $26.00 | March 7, 2023 9781640096042

A young lawyer haunted by war trauma struggles to balance family loyalty against personal ambition. It’s 2014. We meet the protagonist of Burt’s debut novel, Antonia King, as she chats with a wealthy Swedish airplane manufacturer in Minneapolis. He’s in town to start a factory, and Antonia—fresh out of Harvard Law School but reluctantly drawn back to Minnesota, where she has roots—is trying to help a fancy law firm land a major client. She does. But it leads to escalating clashes with her family and revelations about her past. Originally from Sarajevo, Antonia lost her parents to Milosevic’s genocide in the early 1990s, when she was 3. She and her brother, Paul, were adopted by two brothers from a small town in Minnesota, Christopher and Edward King. The orphaned siblings eventually end up living with Christopher, the rich owner of King Family Construction, and his family. Antonia promised to consider working for him after law school; he’s furious when she chooses the Swedish CEO instead. When her activist brother, Paul, who lives in their small hometown’s Somali community, goes missing after a violent protest at the site of their father’s dream project—a glorified strip mall, the big dig of the title—Antonia agrees to help Christopher with damage control. She reunites with her tipsy adoptive mother,

closeted gay brother, Instagram influencer sister, and an icky old flame with political clout—all while trying to quell a sex scandal for her new boss. Burt layers all of this on in a rapidfire style and places Antonia in too many scenes with minor characters. The writing shines in the few moments of intimacy between people before Burt delivers a big reveal. But Antonia as a character fails to come to life even as she learns a real lesson about cutting the ties that bind.

Carr, Lakiesha Pantheon (256 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 28, 2023 978-0-593-31653-5

A deep plunge into the depths of violence, faith, and love experienced by several Black Texan women at various stages of life as they consider how they have both wounded and been wounded by those they’ve loved.

Whether seen as a novel or three novellas linked by overlapping characters, Carr’s debut is by turns eloquent and raw, fantastical and realistic. Part I focuses on the unhappiness and regrets of middle-aged Nettie as she mourns the anniversary of her mother’s death many years earlier. Nettie describes herself as a member of the “generation of integrators” whose parents fought for civil rights and whose kids are disillusioned by the results. Long married to a man with whom she can no longer communicate, Nettie tries to escape loss and regret through gambling and drinking. Her only real solace is her friend Peaches, with whom she shares a nightly cigarette over the phone. Peaches’ daughter, Ketinah, is the link to Part II, concerning Ketinah’s friend Maya. Raised in comfort and well educated, she has never confronted the in-your-face violence her husband, Troy, knows all too well and hopes to escape by “assimilation” into a White, middle-class Houston neighborhood. Struggling with postpartum depression, Maya grows distraught over the barrage of news about Black people killed by police until her panic-stricken desire to protect her children slips toward madness. Ketinah herself narrates Part III, a tour de force that shifts from gritty realism to gothic otherworldliness (though it’s sometimes overwritten). Ketinah, her mother, Peaches, grandmother Eloise, and two great aunts weather a storm together in a San Antonio house eating, bickering, drinking, and mourning loves lost until Eloise and Ketinah’s gift of “the sight,” an ability to see the dead, leads to dramatic revelations. Carr uses the eerie setup to express Eloise’s emotional wisdom based on faith in “Love. Ghosts. God.”

Chakrabarti, Jai Knopf (272 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 21, 2023 9780525658948

Lush, immersive stories set in India and America about people trying to make families. Children—the fierce desire for them, the heartbreak of miscarriage, and the matter of caring for them—knit this collection together. In the title story, Nikhil fantasizes about raising a child with his lover, Sharma, but such a thing is still impossible in 1980s India: “The country is changing,” Nikhil says. “A child diapered by two men,” Sharma replies. “Your country is changing faster than my country is changing.” In “The Import,” Raj and his wife, Bethany, bring a young woman from India to New York to care for their 3-year-old and help them restore their “domestic bliss” only to learn that the