Haunting, Magical and Completely thought provoking Friday Black is a short story collection like no other.
This book had me hooked from the very first page. From the horrifying injustice of Finkelstein Five to Dystopian tales where people hunt terrorists or shoot Intruders played by minority actors in virtual reality, Adej -Brenyah writes essential and captivating fiction about the world we live in.
The stories in this book feature Racism, consumerism and cultural unrest in a powerful, imaginative and contemporary way. This book is one everyone should read.

I had already seen the book being mentioned very positively on social networks. But it was simply one of the thousands of books I came cross. But I was able to see it through NetGalley and when I saw that I had compliments from George Saunders and Roxane Gay, I was curious, so I asked for a copy.

Black Friday is a book of short stories that blend fantasy, dystopia and brutal realism. It is about racism, modern society and the galloping consumerism that dominates us. It's an absolutely brilliant book and one of the best readings I've done this year.

I stand for the first short story in an attempt to show how this book impressed me by the ability to convey ideas and values ​​through a story. It's called The Finkelstein 5 and it starts with a man waking up with a ringing phone:

He took a deep breath and sent the Blackness in his voice down to a 1.5 on a 10-point scale. (...) If he wore a tie, he wiped his shoes, smiled constantly, used his indoor voice, and kept his hand stapped and calm at his sids, he could get his Blackness as low as 4.0.

The way Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah describes the day-to-day life of a Negro controlling himself to look and sound as white as possible is painful and makes me wonder how much I am privileged to be unmarred by all these limitations in my life.

In the story, Finkelstein 5 was the name given to a group of 5 children and teenagers who had been murdered by a white man who had cut their heads with a chainsaw. He had been tried and acquitted.

I think of THIS IS AMERICA (Gambino).

Unfortunately, much closer to the reality that we would like. I believe that the unpunished murder of Trayvon Martin will have inspired this tale, just as the name of his killer (Zimmerman) will have inspired the tale Zimmer Land, a Westworld type park where visitors can live their fantasies, including killing a black man .

And so, being black was / is:

"I want you safe." "You gotta know how to move," his father said to him at a very young age. Emmanuel started learning the basics of his Blackness before he knew how to do long division: smilling when angry, wispering when he wanted to yell.


And somewhere in the middle of the story, I go on a collision course with reality: "Emmanuel found a window seat." No one sat next to him. I remember (easily) that one of the things that impressed me the most in the book Racism in Portuguese, by Joana Gorjão Henriques was a testimony of a black man in Portugal, who shared the suffering of sitting on a bus and the place next to him was the last to be occupied. This is Portugal.

Each tale is a fist in the stomach and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah does not allow rest, in a struggle for our values ​​and our personal choices.

Because in each reading it is impossible not to be constantly questioning how close we are to these alternative realities and our greatest fears, such as poverty and hunger (in my case):

"One day I came home to the warm smell of chichen and rice. I had not been able to steal a second burger in the cafeteria at school that day. My stomach whined. At home the fridge had become a casket bearing nothing. The range and the oven had become decorations meant to make the dying box look like home. Hunger colored those days."

This is Portugal.

This is a fantastic collection of a dozen hard-hitting short stories with not a single bad one amongst them. I absolutely agree with the comparisons to Black Mirror and it would be wonderful to see these tales made into a TV series. Weird and wonderful reading that also deals with serious social issues.

Friday Black is a collection of twelve stories that are a commentary on America's past and present with regards to race. As far as I know these particular stories are fiction but they are definitely believable. As with most short story anthologies, there are some stories that are better than others but they're all pretty good. This book is very dark and incredibly powerful. It's a shocking but important read and I would thoroughly recommend it.

Named as one of the most anticipated books of Autumn 2018, Friday Black is a refreshingly original anthology of stories that use fiction as a device to explore and discuss some very prominent real-world issues, and because of that, this is a collection that is thought-provoking and with much substance to it - something that always really appeals to me.

Although the stories maintain objectivity, they are also brutally honest about the situation the world is currently in. Amongst the major real-world issues that are explored are discrimination (between races, cultures etc), prejudice, capitalism/capitalistic societies, consumerism and materialism. These are merely a few of the problems that make up the core of each of the twelve tales. This is a refreshing, exciting and compelling way to view contemporary subjects.

This is a wonderful compilation of short stories that speak to the world we currently inhabit. Unless you've been burying your head in the sand for many a long year (actually, more like a couple of decades), each of these separate concerns should be already known to you. Friday Black shines a light on these matters bringing them to the forefront of our minds. This is one of the most enjoyable books I've had the pleasure to read this year, and it certainly lives up to the title of 'most anticipated of 2018'. Friday Black makes the reader think about the state of the world and our future here on earth, it does also have a message of hope which, in my opinion, is absolutely vital right now. Despite having finished reading this quite a while ago, I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since. It feels like a book that will leave an indelible imprint both in my mind and in my heart for the foreseeable. I am already pining for more from Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah., please don't wait too long, we readers need to read more of your wonderful work. This is not only deserving of a wide readership, but it is also worthy of the full five stars!

Many thanks to riverrun for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

This was a great debut and some truly original short stories that are so gooooood they set the bar on how amazing short stories can be.
A little serial, a splash of sci-fi and dystopia, anger mixed with sharp observations I was griped, and I want to read it again because each story was so detailed I want to make sure I got everything!
I was especially gripped by Through The Flash that could have been it’s own book, actually most of them would make a great individual lengthier book!

A powerful and hard hitting collection of short stories that will have the reader hooked, and will certainly leave them with plenty to ponder. I am particularly impressed to learn that this is a debut collection, As with all short story collections some are more memorable than others, but this is one of the few collections I have read in recent years where there is something special about most of the stories. Personal highlights included The Finkelstein 5, Zimmerland and Through the Flash, each of which had a futuristic , almost Black Mirror like feel. There is a real visceral quality to the imagery used through out the book, it is gory and graphic, and at times glorious, without glorifying the violence it so often describes. The writing is sublime, the author takes a really sharp view of the realities of the world we live in, and then pushes it just far enough to make a chill run up your spine.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own,

I loved this book. Friday Black is a brilliantly provocative collection of stories that weave the worst of our present into a terrifyingly real near future, filled with characters we fear and worry over. The writing is sharp, precise but unfussy. There is definitely a George Saunders influence (I’m thinking some of my favourite stories like ‘The Semplica Girl Diaries’), but Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is very much himself. A Nigerian history of story runs within the tales twisting the visions of the future in new ways.

The stories range from the fallout of a court case in which a man is set free after killing a whole family of black americans with a chainsaw because he felt they were threatening him. The protagonist in this story, ‘The Finkelstein’, is constantly measuring the level of his own blackness. If his voice is soft and he wears the right clothes he can get it down to a 4.0 on a 10-point scale. Getting his blackness rating down allows him to pass through society without overt notice, helps him to get on in school, get a job. The story is outright terrifying because it literally screams at the reader to take notice of what’s happening in the world around them.

There are several stories that deal with retail and the consumer world. ‘Friday Black’, ‘How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing’ and ‘In Retail’ all take us into the mall and show us the unsettling heart of market competition. They reminded me of the horror novel, The Mall by S. L. Grey.

Adjei-Brenyah exploits both the surreal, in ‘Lark Street’ for example, and the possibilities of genetic enhancement and nuclear fallout, in ‘The Era’ where new enhanced people judge anyone who gives into their emotions or doesn’t say exactly what they think, or ‘Through the Flash’ where people are forced to live their last day, before the atomic flashing end, again and again and again.

This can’t summarise the collection because it is fierce and bubbling with ideas. I read Friday Black as a promotional ebook version but I definitely want to own this book for myself and share its stories. This is writing that is clever, elegant and relevant. A real triumph. I can’t wait to read more of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s work. Friday Black is out in hardback on 23rd October 2018 and paperback next year. Put it on your wish list.

As is often the case with short stories, I found these to be an incredibly mixed bag. I thought the first story was brilliant - it felt really Black Mirror-esque, but unfortunately the rest were mostly forgettable for me, ending predictably and often falling flat.

Friday Black is a short story collection by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, his debut book. Each story is unique, and I was very impressed with the way Adjei-Brenyah manages to write between genres so seamlessly, whether it's the introductory story 'The Finkelstein Five' - which focuses on prejudice and racism in the American justice system - to the apocalyptic and dystopian 'Through the Flash' and the fantasy/supernatural elements of 'The Hospital Where' and 'Light Spitter'.

Friday Black is dark and satirical, holding up a magnifying glass to current day American society and its racism, consumerism and violence. Each story managed to break my heart in a different way and sometimes more than once, yet the stories were so beautifully written. Can't wait to read what's next!

I didn’t know what to expect going into this but I’ve been enjoying short story collections and so wanted to pick up another one.

From the first story I could tell that this was going to be out of my comfort zone. The level of violence is something that took me by surprise to the point where I had to skim read some pages because it was too much for me. On the other hand, some of these stories were really clever and will stay with me going forward.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has a great imagination and has managed to talk about contemporary issues such as race relations, abortion, mental health, suicide, violence and many other themes, in a way that is visceral even in a magical realism setting.

Overall I would recommend this book if you are open to reading about violent subjects. Unfortunately it’s not something that I enjoy reading about so about half the stories just made me feel on edge, like I was cringing throughout. The other half were brilliant though.

3 out of 5 stars!

I didn’t realise this was a collection of short stories so, my bad, but I always find short stories a mixed bag and this collection was I’m afraid. Impossible to booktrail but then that’s not the point here as the setting is racism in the USA so the setting is everywhere and not just in that country.

The stories are as shocking as they are bizarre. The racism in story one was shocking to the extreme and although, I think fictional, must surely represent so many more real cases of its kind.
Other stories, set in a shopping mall among other every day places , were a breed of science-fiction and, well I’m not sure really. There’s a sense of dystopia, groundhog day and more besides.

The mix of stories was one of satire,social commentary and a good hard look at attitudes to race, colour and how a man has to tone down and measure his blackness for a place in today’s world.

A mixed bag for me personally. A lot to take in. Give me a week or two and I might think differently.

The first story in this collection, The Finkelstein 5, hurt my heart.. While there was a satirical edge throughout the story, it was devastatingly relevant, as well as hard-hitting. It was impossible not to have procession of news stories march through my mind while reading it.

The rest of the stories are a bit of a mixed bag, but I wouldn't say any of them were poor. I particularly enjoyed Friday Black, which I think anyone who has every worked in retail can relate to even with the fantastical elements.

Overall, a promising debut.

This was an ARC in exchange for an honest review. With thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books.

When a story makes you cry three pages in, you know you're reading something special. 'The Finkelstein 5', the first short story in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut collection, is astounding. It follows a young man named Emmanuel as he prepares for a job interview, taking steps (modifying his voice, wearing smart clothes, smiling and being constantly polite) to ensure his Blackness is dialled down as far as possible. He's happy about the interview, but 'he also felt guilty about feeling happy about anything. Most people he knew were still mourning the Finkelstein verdict'. A white man has been found not guilty of any wrongdoing in using a chainsaw to decapitate five black children outside the Finkelstein Library. He claims he was protecting his children. The controversial verdict sparks violent protests by groups known as 'Namers', and on his way to the interview, Emmanuel meets an old friend who is keen to act.

This story is ferocious satire, but it's only a hair's breadth from the truth. In the wake of the death of Trayvon Martin and other similar cases, it really isn't that hard to imagine this actually happening. Emmanuel's awareness and regulation of his Blackness is a brilliant articulation of something that will be immediately recognisable to so many – a tactic painfully familiar to anyone who's ever been part of any sort of minority.

Nothing else in the book got to me quite like 'The Finkelstein 5', but it's consistently both enjoyable and biting. 'Zimmer Land' is another standout – George Saunders by way of Black Mirror. The narrator works at a theme park where 'patrons' can role-play a scenario in which they are attacked by, and ultimately 'kill', a black assailant. A trio of stories – 'Friday Black', 'How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing', and 'In Retail' – are set at the Prominent Mall and centre on the day-to-day lives of retail workers. Like 'The Finkelstein 5', 'Friday Black' takes reality and stretches it a little out of shape: the stampedes that accompany Black Friday routinely result in multiple deaths (129 last year); customers speak in a garbled language only Black Friday veterans can understand.

The collection isn't perfect. 'Lark Street' and 'Light Spitter' both feel like ambitious experiments that don't quite come off. The first is about a man who is haunted by the foetuses his girlriend aborted; the second has a school shooter and his victim teaming up – as ghosts – to try and make things right. I really enjoyed 'Through the Flash', in which a community is trapped in a repeating version of the same day, but like a few of the others it could've done with either editing down or expanding to novel length. Sometimes the concepts are too big for the short-story format.

Friday Black is a collection that pulses with ideas and indignation. It incorporates elements of science fiction and magical realism but still has much to say about our lives now. 'The Finkelstein 5' in particular is one of those stories I will never forget.

A debut collection of short stories that focus on racism but also covers consumerism (several stories are set in a shopping mall) and includes several violent scenes. In it’s coverage of racism and consumerism, it is focused on modern day America although the topics it discusses are, in fact, global.

Some of the stories are realistic (but extreme), but many include elements of the fantastical. Take the first story, for example, there is not fantasy or supernatural element, but it is extreme: a white man gruesomely kills five black children with a chainsaw and claims self-defence. Meanwhile, black people rise up and retaliate chanting the names of the dead children as they attack random white people. The title story, Friday Black, takes the surging, bargain-hunting crowds of black Friday and pushes them to the extreme to leave the shopping mall littered with dead bodies. Other stories include ghosts of unborn children, or an “amusement” park where people can visit and dispense “justice”, which basically means killing people. In this story, a work steps through the same scene again and again. In another story, a community experiences a kind of “Groundhog Day”.

I found the first story (The Finkelstein 5) the most engaging. It’s possibly the one that draws the injustices and prejudices most obviously, but it sets a very high bar for the rest of the book and I found myself thinking at the end of each subsequent story that it wasn’t quite as good as the first. But that’s not to say that there aren’t several more strong stories in the collection. The ones I have highlighted above would be my personal choice of the top stories, but I am sure others will relate to different stories. It is sharp and creative. If I have one criticism it is that several of the stories have a similarity about them that means I started to feel a bit like I had read things before (I did, in fact, start to look for connections that weren’t, on examination, there but were just my imagination).

Overall, a very strong collection of stories that grab hold of you and make you take notice.

(To be shared on Goodreads & Twitter in early-October).

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah was recently named in the US as one of the 2018 ‘5 Under 35’ Honorees by the National Book Foundation, an award for authors aged under 35, who have published their first and only book of fiction within the last five years, and 'whose debut titles provide a first look at their exceptional talent as fiction writers.’ He was nominated by Colson Whitehead, winner of the 2016 National Book Award for his The Underground Railroad.

This book - Friday Black - a collection of short-stories, is the book that won him that honour, and it is certainly a striking debut, with a powerful and distinctive voice, covering both themes highly relevant to the Black Lives Matter campaign, and also on the ills of the US consumerist society. And the stories stray into the speculative fiction area, often based on real life but taking it to another extreme.

One example is the story that opens the collection, The Finkelstein 5, perhaps my favourite of all. It begins:

"Fela, the headless girl, walked toward Emmanuel. Her neck jagged with red savagery. She was silent, but he could feel her waiting for him to do something, anything. Then his phone rang, and he woke up. He took a deep breath and set the Blackness in his voice down to a 1.5 on a 10-point scale.
...
That morning, like every morning, the first decision he made regarded his Blackness. His skin was a deep, constant brown. In public, when people could actually see him, it was impossible to get his Blackness down to anywhere near a 1.5. If he wore a tie, wing-tipped shoes, smiled constantly, used his indoor voice , and kept his hands strapped and calm at his sides, he could get his Blackness as low as 4.0.'

The Finkelstein 5 are five young black kids that have been killed gruesomely by a white father. He claims to have been defending his children, except the only thing that caused a threat appears to have been the colour of their skin, and yet he successfully pleads self-defence in court. The story appears exaggerated but this is 2018 where an off-duty policewoman can shoot an unarmed black man in his own apartment, because she entered the wrong flat and thought it was hers, and then parts of the press can attempt to retro-justify this because there was a tiny amount of cannabis found on the premises, cannabis found when police got a search warrant seemingly for the purpose of retro-finding incriminating evidence.

In the story Emmanuel attempts to find work in a mall, but when he is unable to do so - the shop has reached its 'quota' and doesn't want to appear too 'urban' by employing too many minority staff - gets caught up in a revenge moment.

A story with a similar theme, but inventive twist, is Zimmer Land told by an African-American worker in a Westworld like theme park, except the aim of the park is for white citizens to act out their fantasies of defending their families.

Another highlight - this time focusing on the consumerist theme is Friday Black, one of a number of stories set in a clothing store. Here the shopping frenzy that is today Black Friday is taken to a whole new level, with dead bodies littering the scene:

'Maybe eighty people rush through the gate, clawing and stampeding. Pushing racks and bodies aside . Have you ever seen people run from a fire or gunshots? It’s like that, with less fear and more hunger. From my cabin, I see a child, a girl maybe six years old, disappear as the wave of consumer fervor swallows her up. She is sprawled facedown with dirty shoe prints on her pink coat.'

And yet the sales person narrating the story is focused more on hitting his targets than saving lives.

The collection is perhaps less successful when it gets more into dystopian speculative fiction - e.g. the stories Through the Flash or The Era. I am showing my prejudice here against the short-story form, but the stories such as these ones that attempted to build new worlds or set-ups fell a little between two stools - too long for a short-story but not developed enough for a novella: they felt more like sketches for a novel than complete works. And perhaps the other criticism would be that the author is better at arresting openings and creating an interesting set-up, but not quite so good at distinctive endings, which matters more in short-stories than in the longer form.

Nevertheless a worthwhile collection and a highly promising debut: 3.5 stars

A rather uneven collection of short stories that are surreal and dystopian as well as satirical and gritty.

..and this is how you write cutting-edge fiction about the world we live in! Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut is bold, powerful, innovative, and poetic. Every other blurb is randomly claiming that the author of the respective book has a unique voice - this author actually does, and this fall, his short stories are mandatory reading.

"Friday Black" encompasses 12 stories, many of them dealing with racism, consumerism, violence, and the culture of egotism and hate - this book is a comment on today's America (which doesn't mean that some of the issues discussed aren't prevalent in other countries as well). What makes this collection so special is the way the author approaches those topics, introducing fantastical elements, projecting the consequences of the cultural climate on invented scenarios and highlighting tendencies by smartly employing hyperbole. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah wants his readers to look straight into the abyss: A white man kills black kids with a chainsaw and claims self-defense, Black Friday turns a shopping mall into the battleground of the zombie apocalypse, "Good" is now a drug for school children, and there's an amusement park that could have been invented by horror director Eli Roth.

On Twitter, Roxane Gay stated that if you like Childish Gambino's "This is America" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjW...), you will also love this - and I see where this comparison is coming from. Also, both of these works of art punch you in the face and leave you in complete shock and awe. In case you need more comparisons: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's voice is as recognizable as that of Ottessa Moshfegh, and his disregard for narrative conventions reminds me of Carmen Maria Machado.

Oh, and in case I haven't made this clear enough by now: You should READ THIS BOOK. The whole thing is great, but especially "The Finkelstein 5" and "Zimmer Land".