First published 2022
Janelle Monáe transforms the #SayHerName movement into fiction, weaving together the stories of Black women killed by police. The narrative centers on characters whose lives mirror real victims like Breonna Taylor, Alberta Spruill, Rekia Boyd, and Tanisha Anderson. Through interconnected stories, Monáe shows how Black women and girls from age seven to ninety-three face lethal police violence while their names remain unspoken. The protagonist navigates a world where racialized policing intersects with gendered violence, creating deadly consequences for Black bodies. As the story unfolds, characters build community through Black feminist storytelling and ritual, fighting for recognition and justice. The novel demonstrates how including Black women in conversations about police violence sends a powerful message that all Black lives matter and police cannot kill without consequence. At its heart, this is a story about Black feminist practice, community building, and reckoning with systemic violence.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, african-american, contemporary, 21st-century, social-justice
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: community-building, intersectionality, reckoning
320 pages · Paperback · Haymarket Books
Content warnings: racism, violence