Point of View

The stories in Johnson’s book are told from a variety of narrative points of view. The titular novella and the story “Control Negro” (1) are narrated in the first person singular. “My Monticello” (62) is told in the voice of a young woman named Da’Naisha Hemings Love, a descendant of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, while “Control Negro” is told by a college professor who uses his son’s existence as an experiment to attempt to disprove the existence of systemic racism. “Something Sweet on Our Tongues” (27) is narrated in the first person plural, from the collective perspective of a group of elementary school boys. “Virginia Is Not Your Home” (16) and “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse” (40) are both narrated in the second person by women, each of whom is instructing herself through a process; in the former, distancing herself from her hometown, and...