CORA AND MARTHA AND OTHER STORIES

Johnson’s collection of short stories centers around Black voices and experiences.

While much recent literature has sought to prioritize diversity, highlighting more Black voices in the American story, the “Black experience” is often relegated to specific segments of history and culture. In his collection of short stories, Johnson addresses this unfortunate tendency, exploring the Black experience against the backdrop of over a century of American life, starting with the Reconstruction and leading all the way up to the turn of the 21st century. His stories capture a multitude of communities and individual perspectives, from largely Black church communities (as in “Vicarage” and “The Wages of Sin”) and segregated schools (featured in “Waddellee” and “Angeline Smith Was Retiring”) to the star-crossed love of a would-be interracial couple in 1960s Vermont (“Summer’s End”) and the misadventures of interracial friends (“The Doughnuts”) to worlds in which race is indeterminate. Each piece captures human vicissitudes in a uniquely microcosmic way. The narratives are fluid, traversing time and space; however, they are all uniquely American, encouraging readers to think about the essential themes of American literature in the context of racially marginalized groups. Each character is larger than life and very much a product of their environment while maintaining universal appeal (“Unlike the church ladies, Cora and Martha gladly profiteered in illegal business: they played the numbers, and the 700 block of Sevier Street was the only block in their Alcohol Beverage Control town where two rival neighborhood bootleggers peacefully lived and practiced business next door to each other”). At times, the author plays with form, creating cinematic depth with italicized dialogue that elicits feelings of disconnection and memory or constructing cyclical plotlines that create a sense of everyday surrealism. The result is a collection of memorable stories that tackle questions of identity, faith, community, and injustice. A literary masterpiece from start to finish, this collection is a must-read.

A captivating body of stories spanning much of American history.