Point of View

As a collection of short stories, Black Boy Joy does not have a consistent point-of-view. Instead, that choice is left to each of the individual authors and ranges wildly from story to story. Within 19 short stories- including the three separate parts of “The Griot on Grover Street” - nine of them are in the first-person, another nine are in the third-person, and one is written in the second-person. Each narrator feels unique, even between third-person stories, but all of them focus on creating stories centered around the discovery of joy. Some stories, like “But Also, Jazz” or “Extinct” are naturally more sad in tone than others, but there is still a sense of hope within the narrating as the characters come to terms with their grief, fear, or anger and find some source of happiness. Other tales, like “Epic Venture” or “Got Me a Jet...