My Monticello: A conversation with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson and Dr. Akilah Cadet
In partnership with Cafe con Libros and Adanne we are excited to present the launch for My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson in paperback.
Featured on numerous “Best of the Year” lists (including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Bookforum, LitHub, NPR, and many others) and widely-praised Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s debut is a powerful collection. Johnson is joined by Dr. Akilah Cadet for an online conversation you won’t want to miss.
“It is a rare breed of writer who can tell any kind of story and do so with exquisite deftness. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is one such writer. Her debut collection, My Monticello, is comprised of six stories of astonishing range, and each one explores what it means to live in a world that is at once home and not…This collection is absolutely unforgettable and Johnson’s prose soars to remarkable heights.”
—Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger and Ayiti
“I was enthralled from the opening lines of this book. These chilling, thought-provoking, and expertly crafted stories showcase Johnson’s range and ability—they broke my heart as well as my brain. A stunning collection.”
—Charles Yu, National Book Award–winning author of Interior Chinatown
Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.
In “Control Negro,” hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,” a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.” Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.”
United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is the author of My Monticello, a fiction debut that was called "a masterly feat" by the New York Times, which placed third on Time Magazine's 10 best books of the year. My Monticello won the Weatherford Award, the Lillian Smith Prize, and was finalist for many others, including a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pen/Faulkner Award, and an LA Times Book Award. Johnson has been a fellow at TinHouse, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her writing appears in Guernica, The Guardian and elsewhere. Her short story “Control Negro” was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2018, guest edited by Roxane Gay and read live by LeVar Burton. A veteran public school art teacher, Johnson lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Dr. Akilah Cadet is the Founder and CEO of Change Cadet, a change management and organizational development consulting firm that offers a broad array of services that support embedding anti-racism, diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging into overall organizational identity & strategy. Dr. Cadet has 15+ years in management and building successful projects, teams, and leaders in the public and private sectors. She is a 2021 Forbes Next 1000 Honoree and honored as one of Staffing Industry Analysts’ (SIA) 2021 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Influencers. Forbes and the Wall Street Journal Diversity and Business Newsletter have featured her work. She has spent an extensive part of her career designing training, coaching executives, and informing systematic change to improve the workforce experience for large organizations. She lives in Oakland, CA, literally has all the degrees, celebrates her disability, has an incredible shoe game, and is a proud Beyoncé advocate.