Friday Black is a collection of short stories for Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s debut. The stories are predominantly contemporary and place ordinary characters in extraordinary situations. For example, an amusement park that lets players enter an augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders payed by minority actors, an author that sold his soul to a monstrous god, a gunman and his victim being stuck in a shared purgatory, and a near future where the massive shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday takes a dark and terrible turn.

This book is a somewhat warped reflection of the everyday violence, injustice, and absurdities that black men and women wrestle with every day. Each story takes on different aspects of racism and explores the way that people struggle and fight for their humanity in a world that in many ways is cruel.

The first story, “The Finkelstein 5” looks at injustice for blacks in America. It is dark and captivating, but the descriptions and the violence could make it too much for the more squeamish readers. However, that doesn’t make it any less worth reading or powerful. The story focuses on the trial of a white man who murdered five black children outside of a library with a chainsaw and was quickly acquitted by a jury of his peers and the backlash of the trial and the unrest that it causes.

The strongest story in the collection gives the novel its name, “Friday Black”.  It portrays Black Friday shoppers as ravenous zombies of consumerism. They kill and maim each other to get winter coats and jeans. The staff members of the big box store of the story even have a team member who is solely responsible for taking care of the bodies. They call it “working the broom”. The employees lack sympathy to the point that the equate it with sweeping up trash.

I can relate to this story having worked in a big box store on Black Friday for a couple of years. Being a customer service worker in America can be extremely stressful and traumatic, but overtime it also lowers your sympathy for other people. People screaming at you and treating you like trash usually over some minor problems, that do not equate with that level of dehumanization, really diminishes your level of sympathy and even empathy or a period of time.

Each of these stories are intelligent, at times fantastical, and they leave behind some very provoking thoughts on real-world issues. Adjei-Brenyah was named by Colson Whitehead as one of the five to watch writers under thirty-five years old and if Adjei-Brenyah can write a book with as much hard hitting as these stories than he will be one to watch in the future.

Let me know what you think about Friday Black! Do you have PTSD from working retail or in a service position? Feel free to share any horror stories in the comments below!

Important Bits:
Length: 208 pages
Published: October 23rd, 2018 by Mariner Books
Trigger Warning: Violence and Racism
Awards: Aspen Words Literary Prize Nominee for Longlist (2019)