10 books like Another Brooklyn

Toni Morrison once described her books as simple stories about complicated characters, and this also applies to The Known World. This beautifully-written novel, told from the perspective of slave-owners, surprises—but in this case, because they’re Black.

I’d come across an instance of African American slave-owning (which were very few) while researching my first book. Jones understands that the contradictions of the premise offer a great opportunity to explore the fiction of American racial identity.

In The Known World, there are no characters in white hats and others in black hats. The African American characters are no more noble than the white ones.

No, slavery corrupts all.

Every now and then I come across a book that I wish I had written, and Quashie’s Black Aliveness is among them. One of the motivating premises of Afro-Nostalgia is the sense that so much of black life is narrated through a trauma, oppression, and death. Black Aliveness operates from a similar premise and is centrally concerned with the “quality of aliveness” in African American poetry and literature. Here is one of my favorite passages in the book: “As necessary as ‘Black Lives Matter’ has proven to be, so efficient and beautiful a truth-claim, its necessity disorients me…I want a black world where matter of mattering matters indisputably, where black mattering is beyond expression.”

The word, utopia, derives from the Greek terms ou “not” + topos “place”---“no place.” Yet, the idea of a perfect “place” or society is one that has captured the imagination of artists, writers, politicians, and governments for centuries. I really love the concept of “everyday utopias” because it focuses on small, local spaces of joy and pleasure that people create for themselves outside and beyond the boundaries of social norms and expectations. Inherent in the term “utopia” is the impossibility of the idea and yet, readers witness thriving communities that show the possibilities of alternative systems of governance, self-sufficiency, civility, and citizenship, as well as well-being and pleasure.

There’s this rumor that poets look longer and harder at the ornaments of the world than do anyone else.  They keep looking, and looking, and looking, after most everyone else has long ago looked away, moved on. Here, in the wonderful world of poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s first book of nonfiction, whimsy and reverence twine like the DNA helices of the flora and fauna she examines. In her essay on the firefly, I adore the part when the insects “…lose their light rhythm for a few minutes after a single car’s headlights pass. Sometimes it takes hours for them to recalibrate their blinking patterns.”

It’s never the plot that draws me to a novel; it’s always other ingredients like people and place and, in these regards, Cranford is a stellar delight. The protagonist is a frequent house guest in the small town of Cranford, giving readers intimate access to the quirky social codes of its mostly female population. From the ones who care about social mores to the ones who care less, these wonderful vignettes document their attempts to outwit a visiting magician, or foil rumored night-burglars, or adapt to the losses of loved ones. Each woman has had a journey in some way stifled by the patriarchy of the 1800s but these ladies’ timeless and absorbing intelligence, compassion, loyalty, ingenuity, forbearance, and above all, wit, shine through.

Although dipping into glamorous strata of New York society, the friendship dynamics reminded me of the period of adulthood where you start to make your way in the world… Often it involves new jobs or new cities and sometimes women discover the people they thought were close friends are not. Parallel journeys of female friends can put them into tension where paths diverge and taking space is the only solution. Here, avid reader Katey is moving beyond her humble beginnings by talent and character alone, while room-mate Eve is escaping her privilege and family ties; their agendas blend well for a while until they spin off in different directions. Resourceful Katey continually starts over in her smart, sharp-humoured style becoming ever more able to rely on herself.

Of all the genres, I’m drawn most to contemporary realism and this book is a spectacular example. Despite the age gap between myself and the main character (Frances, aged 21) the writing is so astute, assured, and insightful that this book has no problem straddling the generations. Friendship definitions herein are not conventional which makes it infinitely interesting; the four main characters are a mix of best friends, exes, spouses, new friends, new flings, and new infatuations. Their daily concerns and communications are utterly contemporary, reflecting the seamless mish-mash of digital and in-person updates that sustain modern connections. Vulnerability is no one’s strong suit, so when these self-aware, funny and flawed pairs meet they burn brightly until they burn out. 

How are women supposed to behave, discreetly? Are their friendships always a saccharine Hallmark card? Not in this novel. Living loudly, louchely, in chaos, with hedonistic nights out and all-day hangovers, Laura and Tyler are a tight, whip-funny twosome… except one has a wedding on the horizon to a teetotal stable man, and she’s wrestling with whether marriage is a legitimate life milestone anymore. The friendship portrayal here is a messy, clever, and foul-mouthed foray into the moment when inseparable friends face the prospect of their familiar relationship disappearing through the unstoppable forces of adult life. And we’ve all had impossible choices when we haven’t known which loyalties to put first – one’s duty to oneself or to one’s best friend?

This was the first chapter book I remember reading when I was a little girl, and I still love the story. Set during the early 20th century, Francie, her younger brother, and their mom struggle to survive. The children hoard trash to sell to the junk man for the pennies he pays them on Saturday. Their mother works as a janitress in exchange for rent and a few dollars. Their father works as a singing waiter, but drinks away his earnings. 

I followed Francie from age eleven to age seventeen. I felt like I knew her and was cheering for her to find a better place in her world. This novel highlighted what it was like to grow up impoverished in a city where everyone seems to notice and judge. 

Yet another short, coming-of-age novel with a staccato rhythm, We the Animals is 125 pages long and made of 19 chapters spotlighting different moments in the lives of 3 brothers growing up in a dysfunctional family in Brooklyn, New York. The novel is a dark, lyrical portrayal of boyhood and toxic masculinity as it follows the 3 brothers from boyhood to adolescence through several jumps in time that resist a novel’s evocation of a “vivid and continuous dream,” to echo John Gardner’s famous words. Another subversive narrative choice here is the abrupt switch in narration from a first-person plural to a first-person singular narration toward the end of the book, as the story’s protagonist no longer refers to the inseparable 3 brothers, but to the youngest one who invites the reader to witness the violence his family inflicts on him when they find out he is gay.