Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson | Waterstones My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson | Waterstones

Fuelled by adrenaline, Da’Naisha seems to have driven them there by chance, but she has a special relationship with Monticello; she’s a descendent of Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who bore a number of Jefferson’s children. One of her neighbours teases her about the connection: “So y’all are like hood royalty or something”? Da’Naisha notes the irony that the plantation, previously overseen by a man who considered slavery a “moral depravity” yet owned 600 enslaved people, is their one hope of salvation.Guernica: One of the fascinating things about your work is how you tie in our history and legacy of slavery with the gradual destruction of the earth. Can you talk about this a little bit? And Monticello, where they stop on their way to the Piedmont Mountains, is the slave plantation of one of the founding fathers of America, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Da’Naisha is a descendant of Jefferson through his historically documented affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. That Johnson chooses to make her protagonist a descendent of Jefferson reveals the twin legacies of the man in contemporary America: Da’Naisha embodies the desire for freedom, but she is also cursed by the legacy of slavery. My Monticello is a near-future apocalypse-esque tale which is all too easily imagined in the current era. White supremacists have hounded residents of Charlottesville out of their homes and the group seek refuge in Thomas Jefferson's plantation home as the supremacist hordes descend upon them. The last story, which is the titular tale, My Monticello, takes up a good chunk of the collection, more than double the length of the other five combined. I really wanted to like this one more — maybe the most — but the distance at which the narrator is placed from the reader was too far to reach. A reluctant storyteller is just someone I don't want to chase. I liked the plot and found it really intriguing, but the engagement of the story in itself was something for which I could not compensate on my own. My Monticello seemed to have the most story to tell and was still the most disinterested of the lot. I also based the neighborhood in the novella on First Street, which is right near my home. It’s very diverse and includes a cluster of public housing. In the story the characters are mostly fleeing from public housing. There are people from all over, who immigrated to the United States from all over the world. There are people of all colors, people of all ages, people of all ways of being in that space. I wanted the neighborhood in the book to have that quality as well, as I believe in the possibility of placing a lot of different people together and then finding some commonality.

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson | Waterstones

This interview is a sort of homecoming for Johnson, whose first published short story “Control Negro” appeared in Guernica after our editors read it in the slush. “Control Negro” went on to be chosen by Roxane Gay for the Best American Short Stories 2018 and read on radio by LeVar Burton as part of PRI’s Selected Shorts series, and is included in the new collection. I spoke with Johnson from her home in Charlottesville.Library of Virginia Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards". www.lva.virginia.gov . Retrieved 2022-08-22. This fiction collection is an astonishing display of craftsmanship and heart-tugging narratives. Johnson is a brilliant storyteller who gracefully reflects a clear mirror on a troubled America. But mostly I knew my lineage the way most families know theirs: I knew because Momma told me, because MaViolet told her.” By the time you read this, you may have figured it out. Perhaps your mother told you, though she was only privy to my timeworn thesis—never to my aim or full intention. Still, maybe the truth of it breached your insides: Current Winners of the Weatherford Award for Best Books about Appalachia". Loyal Jones Appalachian Center . Retrieved 2022-06-06.

My Monticello: Fiction: Johnson, Jocelyn Nicole My Monticello: Fiction: Johnson, Jocelyn Nicole

Strand, Karla (2021-10-01). "October 2021 Reads for the Rest of Us - Ms. Magazine". Ms. Magazine . Retrieved 2021-10-16. This fiction collection is an astonishing display of craftsmanship and heart-tugging narratives. Johnson is a brilliant storyteller who gracefully reflects a clear mirror on a troubled America.”Narrated in epistolary style, the darkly satirical “Control Negro” is the strongest of the five short stories. The main character is a professor who seeks to understand just how much race (and racism) matter to life outcomes. To answer this question, he decides he needs “a Control Negro” free from the disadvantages of his own childhood. Each story in My Monticello along with the novella take place in the state of Virginia. How is Virginia a character in this book? What I liked best is the figurative use of Monticello, the house belonging to Jefferson and where he both kept slaves and impregnated one (or more? my knowledge of US history is shaky) whose descendants are at the heart of the book. The disputed nature of American history, who 'owns' Monticello and who are its descendants are where the interests and weight of this lay for me. And wow - that incendiary ending!