Books on Tap met Feb. 1st at Beer Run to discuss “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month”, a 2018 collection of 22 short stories by N. K. Jemisin.  A few new faces joined us due to their interest in this particular author, some of whom had read her Broken Earth trilogy.

Many of the stories are set in either New Orleans (Jemisin went to Tulane) or New York City, where the author lives. Themes of governmental control, motherhood, race/racism, colonialism,  and destruction of the earth/climate change are present, layered, and definitely overlap in all of the stories. Several stories are dystopian in nature. Many in our merry group are not fans of that particular genre. (See the Books On Tap blog post concerning The Hunger Games…)

Jemisin found author Octavia Butler as a teenager, and readers could see the influence of Butler in her writing. The group acknowledged that it is important that people of color see themselves in literature and felt that Jemisin was purposeful in her depiction of her characters.  

Some who listened to the audiobook found this to be a hard collection to listen to. Many of the stories have invented languages and unique voices and names. Those listeners found it difficult to follow those styles of stories in the audio version. Others said they benefited from listening to the audio version.

Here is an insightful essay Jemisin wrote that inspired this collection of stories:

How Long ’til Black Future Month?

A few stories stood out to several members including: The Effluent Engine, Cuisine des Mémoires, L’Alchemsta and The City Born Great; the short story that inspired N.K. Jemisin to write the novel The City We Became. Some viewed The Effluent Engine as having a historical fiction or steampunk feel. The Evaluators and Walking Awake were described as being very “creepy” by several readers.

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