Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta

This book dazzles on so many levels it’s almost head-spinning.

It’s the almost-real-time tale of a Black transgender woman, Carlotta Mercedes, who comes back to her Brooklyn family and neighborhood after 20 years in prison, to find, Rip Van Winkle-like, that almost everything has changed and that she feels like a ghost walking back into a world she recalls so differently.

Loosely based on Ulysses, it plays out entirely in one July Fourth weekend, with almost no jump cuts. In a feat I don’t think I’ve ever seen a novel pull off, the narration constantly toggles, even in the same… show more.

I picked it up because of the title. I got hooked, to my surprise, by the wacky point-of-view shifts and the bizarre punctuation, which was too offbeat to be poor editing. And suddenly, it was like I was watching the movie, by turns gut-punched and laughing out loud.

This is not Orange is the New Black (although I liked that book too). This is a voice beyond my experience, a character outside my creative talent, a narrative way outside my writing ability.

I want a sequel to see where the story goes next, and I dread a sequel that will… show more.

This read was as chaotic and exciting as the craziest day of your life (lol).

As we enter the story, our protagonist, Carlotta Mercedes, who has been transitioning from male to female, is being released from a stint in prison, where she spent years incarcerated for a crime she may or may not have committed (you won’t catch me doing any spoiler alerts!). She has been trapped on an all-male cell block and is a victim of sexual assault by both guards and fellow inmates. 

Coming home, she must stay on the right (legal) path and find a job while… show more.

This remarkable novel, patterned lightly after James Joyce’s Ulysses, is the tale of Carlotta Mercedes, a Black and Hispanic transgender woman who returns to her Brooklyn neighborhood after serving decades in prison because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Unfolding almost in real time over the 2015 July 4 weekend, the book has a chaotic, madcap energy and toggles seamlessly throughout between a traditional third-person narrative and the hilarious, heartbreaking first-person monologue inside Carlotta’s brilliant, bonkers head.

Reading this novel is like getting on a nonstop rollercoaster with a narrator who will crack you up… show more.

Truly, nobody does give a shit what happens to Carlotta. Except for Carlotta, a Black, transgender woman, who is undefeated by prison and the idiocy of the parole system and the indifference of her family when she’s released, and the way in which her Brooklyn neighborhood has been rendered completely unrecognizable by gentrification.

This book combines some heavy accounts of violence and the psychological torture of using isolation in prisons, but it’s balanced by Carlotta’s overpowering belief in herself and her voice, which will climb inside your head and stay there for a very long time.