My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

 

This debut book is a compilation of pieces that give the reader a feel for what it is like to grow up as an African-American in the United States.  The longest piece is the title one and takes place in a country that has been torn apart and people set adrift to find supplies and refuge.  Da'Naisha, who is a descendant of Sally Hemming and Thomas Jefferson, takes to the road with a group of people that includes her grandmother who raised her as well as Knox, her white lover and Duncan, her first lover.  The group ends up at Monticello where Da'Naisha worked one summer as an intern while attending University of Virginia.  The group settles in there but there are others on the roads and organized groups of men who are burning houses and killing black folks.  This piece is a novella and takes up the majority of the book.

Other pieces are included.  One tells of a professor who as a sociologist, compares the life path of his own unacknowledged son with that of white boys of the same economic background.  Another is the story of a woman who drops out of college after going abroad and meeting a photographer.  They marry and soon the woman is left with children to raise and a husband who is rarely there, taking assignments all over the world.  Yet another piece tells of growing up black and attending school and how that is different from the academic experiences of other ethnic groups.  

This book has won several awards and is an outstanding start for the career of this writer.  I listened to this book and the various narrators added much to the stories of the lives of African Americans and their experiences in our country.  African Americans should find relevance in this work and those of other ethnicities will start to understand on a basic level the everyday experiences of others.  This book is recommended for readers of multicultural works and literary fiction.