Month: February 2019

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 1 Comment
The Stacks received Friday Black from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. For more information click here.

In his debut book, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has crafted an ambitious and exciting short story collection with, Friday Black. The stories meet at the intersection of race, politics, and capitalism. And just like the range of topics and ideas Adjei-Brenyah addresses with these stories, the genre is likewise ranging and evolving as the collection goes on. The stories of Friday Black are genre-bending and contain elements of surrealism, science fiction, satire, and afrofuturism. Nothing about this collection is easy to define, which of course, is part of the magic.

We discussed Friday Black for The Stacks Book Club with Wade Allain-Marcus, and the conversation is as ranging as the book itself, so please go give it a listen. You can also hear author Adjei-Brenyah as a guest on The Short Stacks talk about how the book came into the world. I found that both of these conversations helped me to form my opinions on this book.

The use of race and violence in this book is genius. We are asked to confront what happens to our society if White capitalist patriarchy is our guiding value. If Black life continues to be made expendable, and if we continue to think that our goodness is tied up in the things we own, where does that path take us?. Friday Black forces us to look at one set of answers to these questions. It is bleak and grotesque in all together terrifying.

The stories that landed most with me were “The Finkelstein 5”, “Zimmerland”, and “Friday Black”. Each one was shocking and smart and violent and thought provoking. They engaged with politics and race as well as engaging with genres and imagery. They felt like anchors for me on my journey through Friday Black.

Friday Black is the kind of story collection that keeps you thinking and working to decipher the many hidden gems and references. I can’t tell you that I “got” all the stories. Some things made little sense to me in the moment, and still remain unclear. However some of the stories have come more into focus as I have time away from the book, and have talked to others about their understandings. The stories feel a little ahead of their time and I wonder how I might feel about Friday Black in 10 or 15 years. I hold out hope that the stories I didn’t quite understand (“The Hospital Where”) will become more clear and more resonant with time.

Adjei-Brenyah uses a lot of satire in this book, and that can often be challenging to decipher, especially in the written word. If you miss the subtleties in the stories, you might just miss the whole point. That rings especially true in the story “Lark Street”, where a young man comes face to face with the twin fetuses that his girlfriend has recently terminated through the use of a morning after pill. If you look at this story out of context, it can feel like a pro-life fable about the autonomy of any form of life. However, in conversation with the other stories, we see a cautionary tale that mocks the idea of embryos being anything other than a collection of cells. That is how these stories work together as a true collection. The topics may vary wildly, but the through line is the tone and the controversial nature of the topics. They all play to the same themes but engage with them on many fronts.

While not every story in the book landed for me, the overall ambition and scope of the project is thrilling. Adjei-Brenyah is debut author with a lot to say, and after reading Friday Black I look forward to whatever is next for him. I hope this project will get produced, as I would love to see the world of Friday Black on the screen.

We have so much more on Friday Blackon the podcast, listen to the episodes below.

  • Paperback: 208
  • Publisher: Mariner Books; First Edition edition (October 23, 2018)
  • 4/5 stars
  • Buy Friday Black on Amazon

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 48 Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah — The Stacks Book Club (Wade Allain-Marcus)

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 2 Comments

Friday Black is a genre-bending collection of short stories by debut author, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. It tackles the Black experience in America, consumerism, mental health and many other pressing issues of our day. Today on The Stacks, Wade Allain-Marcus (Insecure, French Dirty, Snowfall) and Traci attempt to break down the major themes and ideas from these stories for The Stacks Book Club. There are spoilers on today’s episode, but if you haven’t read the book yet, check out our conversation with author Adjei-Brenyah on The Short Stacks instead.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Connect with Wade: Instagram | Twitter | Website
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To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks received Friday Black from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. For more information click here.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 1 Comment

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is one of Shakespeare earliest comedies, and was the February read for the #ShakeTheStacks Challenge. It is the story of Proteus and Valentine, two young men who are best friends and in love with two different women, Julia and Silvia. As the play goes on, things change, mostly Proteus, and the whole thing goes off the rails. There is crossdressing, a dog, some rebels, love songs, and banishments. Its a whole thing.

This play is not a great read, it is much better on stage. A lot of the humor is physical, revolving around Launce and his dog, Crab. Not to mention Proteus’ change in a allegiance makes most sense when its seen, on the page it feels manic and unfounded.

The women in this play are fiercely loyal and committed to their own happiness. They both are able to express their free will in a way that many women characters are not, even in today’s literature, especially that written by men. Both Julia and Silvia get to be a little mean, which I love. Sure, they’re also a little spoiled, but their hearts are in the right place.

The ending of the play has left scholars stumped/in debate with each other for centuries. The pay off of the complicated and morally troubling ending is really something. Seeing the play (and having been in it, as Silvia), and how each actor plays the ending is really what makes the ending so confounding.

The writing to The Two Gentlemen of Verona is very straight forward, and if you’re new to Shakespeare’s plays it is a great pick. Otherwise, I might not suggest this one. It doesn’t have a ton to say that doesn’t get said better in other plays like A Midsummers Night Dream or As You Like It. The Two Gentlemen of Verona feels like a place that Shakespeare started exploring themes like, loyalty in conflict with love, women dressing up like men, and love triangles gone wrong.

Next month for #ShakeTheStacks Challenge, I’ll be reading Love’s Labour’s Lost.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Short Stacks 7: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah//Friday Black

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 4 Comments

Today on The Short Stacks we’re honored to welcome author of this week’s The Stacks Book Club pick, Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. We talk about his genre-bending short story collection, how the title and cover came to be, and what its like being part of this current moment of exciting and diverse fiction writing. There are no spoilers today.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Connect with Nana: Website | Twitter | Instagram

Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks received Friday Black from the publisher. For more information click here.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 47 Reading, Writing, and Representation with Wade Allain-Marcus

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 1 Comment

Its time for another episode of The Stacks. Today our guest is actor (Insecure, Snowfall), director (French Dirty), and writer (Grown-ish) Wade Allain-Marcus. We talk about how TV shows are written, white savior narratives, and connecting with the emotional truth of a story. Plus, we’re joined by Wade’s chatty dog Tika.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Books

Everything Else

Connect with Wade: Instagram | Twitter | Website
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To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 1 Comment

Nicole Chung’s story of her transracial adoption, search for her birth parents, and becoming a mother come together beautifully in this, her memoir, All You Can Ever Know. We featured Chung and her book on The Stacks podcast, you can hear Chung talk about her process on The Short Stacks, and a full discussion of the book (with spoilers) with author Vanessa McGrady for The Stacks Book Club.

What makes All You Can Ever Know special, is Chung’s willingness to be open and vulnerable with her story. She embraces the complexities of adoption and identity, and her reader is privileged to get to hear her inner most thoughts on these subjects. Chung weaves three families together, her birth family, her adoptive family, and the family she has created with her husband in the most fluid and natural way. It all makes sense. She finds the balance between the three and that allows for a much deeper understanding of who she is.

Chung was adopted by White parents into a White family and community, and is by birth Korean. This element, her transracial adoption, was what I found most interesting. I would have loved even more about this as Chung grows older and comes into her own. We hear a lot about how it effected her as a child, and her desires to be white, or more accurately, be the same as those around her. However, as the book goes on we don’t really get to revisit her relationship to her ethnicity once out of her White hometown.

I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about adoption in such an intimate way. Chung doesn’t speak for all adoptees or for anyone else in All You Can Ever Know, and yet she is able to tap into the ideas of family and belonging that feel universal. I suggest this book to lovers of memoir, people interested in adoption stories, and people who appreciate small stories.

We have so much more on All You Can Ever Know on the podcast, listen to the episodes below.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 46 All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung — The Stacks Book Club (Vanessa McGrady)

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 1 Comment

All You Can Ever Know is an emotional memoir on adoption and identity by Nicole Chung. It is also this week’s pick for The Stacks Book Club. We are again joined by author Vanessa McGrady (author of Rock Needs River) to discuss All You Can Ever Know. We talk about transracial adoptions, adoption mythology, and expectations versus reality. There are spoilers this week, listen at your own risk, or check out The Short Stacks feature author Nicole Chung, which is spoiler free.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Connect with Vanessa: Website | Twitter | Instagram
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Short Stacks 6: Nicole Chung//All You Can Ever Know

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 2 Comments

Today on The Short Stacks author Nicole Chung joins us to discuss her memoir, and The Stacks Book Club pick, All You Can Ever Know. The book addresses her transracial adoption, her decision to find her birth family, and becoming a mother. Nicole shares with The Stacks the chaotic setting in which she wrote the book, why she felt compelled to tell her story, and much more. There are no spoilers this week, so listen and enjoy, and then come back on Wednesday to hear our TSBC conversation around All You Can Ever Know.

LISTEN NOW

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Stitcher

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Connect with Nicole: Website | Twitter | Instagram
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Rock Needs River: A Memoir About a Very Open Adoption by Vanessa McGrady

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 1 Comment
The Stacks received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. For more information click here.

In Rock Needs River, Vanessa McGrady shares her journey from deciding she wants to be a mother, to adopting her daughter Grace, to eventually taking in Grace’s homeless birth parents. McGrady navigates the sometimes murky boundaries of open adoption in this debut memoir. The Stacks sat down with Vanessa McGrady to discuss her book and her experiences on Episode 45, which you can listen to for more context on the book.

McGrady is amazing at connecting with her reader, from nearly the first page I was with her. Rock Needs River is, if nothing else, totally readable. There is an openness and honesty with all that comes up, even the complicated stuff, like murky boundaries, family relationships, and entitlement. McGrady doesn’t fein modesty, nor does she shy away from sharing traits that aren’t always so desirable.

The biggest challenge in Rock Needs River is that much of it feels rushed or unexamined. No characters (aside from McGrady) seem fully developed, which leaves them challenging to connect with. The same is true of the main conflict in the book, Grace’s birth parents. Their situation is glossed over and unspecific. McGrady wants to help them (and is clearly generous in letting them move in), but she doesn’t really get into anything beyond her shock and her disappointment in them not getting back on track. This part of the book could have benefited from more interrogation and introspection. It is this lack of specificity that ultimately hurts the book.

McGrady finds the time to reflective on moments throughout Rock Needs River, but comes up short when she has to fit the pieces together and bring the bigger narrative into focus. The book is a quick and easy read, but I sometimes found that it wasn’t grounded. I would recommend this book to people looking to get a glimpse of what one story of open adoption is like, though I think it would be best to pair with other adoption stories for context and perspective.

Click here to hear Vanessa McGrady on The Stacks talking about Rock Needs River and more.

  • Hardcover: 182
  • Publisher: Little A (February 1, 2019)
  • 3/5 stars
  • Buy onRock Needs River Amazon

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Stacks Anniversary Giveaway and Book Drive

~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 2 Comments
Prisoners Literature Project’s Wishlist | The Free Black Women’s Library Wishlist

To celebrate one year of The Stacks on #bookstagram, I wanted to do a giveaway for you, and a book drive for those in need of some good reading.

I have picked two organizations, Prisoners Literature Project and The Free Black Women’s Library Los Angeles.

To enter the giveaway here is what you need to do:

  1. Follow @thestackspod on Instagram
  2. Donate a book through these links: PLP Wishlist or FBWL-LA Wishlist
  3. Comment with the title of the book you donated
  4. Share your receipt in your Instagram stories and tag @thestackspod. If your account is private please DM @thestackspod.
  5. Every book you donate is an entry.

It is super simple, will make you feel good, and you’re entered to win:

  1. A copy of Parkland by Dave Cullen– one of The Stacks most anticipated reads of 2019
  2. A copy of the new UK edition (with new forward) of Columbine by Dave Cullen as gifted by the author.
  3. A book of your choosing by a Black author– in honor of Black History Month
  4. The Stacks Tote Bag
  5. The Stacks Bookmarks

So head over to The Stacks Instagram page and enter.

Giveaway closes February 21, 2019 at 11:59pm PST. Must be at least 18 years of age. Not affiliated with any organizations, publishers, authors, or websites.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs in which we receive a small commission when products are purchased through some links on this website. This does not effect opinions on books and products. For more information click here.