Friday Black

Published in 2018, Friday Black is the debut collection of short stories by American author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Early versions of stories in this book were published in literary journals like Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and Printers Row. Looking at racial violence and the inner lives of retail workers through a surreal lens, Friday Black earned critical praise and accolades including the 2019 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Adjei-Brenyah was also named one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” authors in 2018 and was a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2019.

This guide refers to the 2018 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade paperback edition of Friday Black.

Content Warning: The stories in this collection discuss or depict racism, bigoted language, intense violence, violence against animals, substance use and addiction, implied anti-gay bias, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

Friday Black includes 12 short stories, five of which are told by unnamed narrators in the first person: “Things My Mother Said,” “Lark Street,” “The Hospital Where,” “Friday Black,” and “The Lion & the Spider.”

In “The Finkelstein 5,” a young Black man named Emmanuel encounters an old school friend named Boogie, who invites him to participate in an emerging trend called Naming. The trend, which became popular after a man was acquitted of killing five Black children in a violent hate crime, involves assaulting white people in the names of the five victims. After being disqualified from a job interview because of his ethnicity, Emmanuel joins Boogie and his group to attack a white couple but finds little satisfaction in the activity. After forcing them to say one of the victims’ names, he stops Boogie from killing them and is himself killed by police who arrive on the scene.

In “Things My Mother Said,” the unnamed narrator’s mother tells him how lucky he is to have her, which clashes against the backdrop of their worsening living conditions. One day, the narrator comes home to find a fresh meal of chicken and rice. His religious mother refuses to tell him how she came to cook the food but reminds him to be grateful. The narrator later finds a burned patch of grass in the backyard and affirms his mother’s sayings.

“The Era” takes place in a society where people have the option to optimize their children’s attributes before they are born. Ben, who wasn’t optimized before birth and is ostracized by those around him, turns to a mood-enhancing drug called “Good” to cope with his feelings. His parents limit his access to Good after learning about his dependency. Ben goes over to his classmate Leslie’s house in the hope of accessing their Good supply. However, he learns that Leslie’s family, the McStowes, rejects the use of Good. They invite Ben to enter rehabilitation, which frustrates him. While suffering from withdrawal, Ben winds up in the nurse’s office and is once again barred from accessing Good. Ben then recalls a joke Leslie’s father told him, signaling his openness to their influence.

In “Lark Street,” the unnamed narrator is woken by the fetuses of his aborted twin children. They demand that he take them to the psychic whom their mother, Jaclyn, has been visiting. He finds her there, and Jaclyn invites him to have his palm read. He abandons the reading halfway through, revealing that he paid the psychic to encourage her to carry out her abortion. The narrator discovers that one of the fetuses killed the other in retaliation for bullying. Jaclyn takes the fetuses and leaves the narrator on his own after he expresses his reluctance to show that he cares.

“The Hospital Where” concerns a young aspiring writer who accompanies his aging father to the hospital. The young man, who once made a deal with a supernatural being called the Twelve-tongued God to change the world with his writing, encounters the deity in the hospital. The Twelve-tongued God calls the young man to serve it, but the young man feels unprepared to do so. The god taunts him into hijacking the hospital speaker system, which he uses to declare everyone healed. At once, the young man’s statements become true, seemingly granting the patients with brief displays of power. The young man’s father watches in shock as patients flood out of the hospital and take flight.

In “Zimmer Land,” a theme park actor named Isaiah roleplays in immersive scenarios that allow park patrons to commit indulgent acts of violence in the name of justice. Isaiah seeks to change the park from within and takes a job on the park’s creative team. During his first creative meeting, the park leaders announce that they will soon allow young people and children to enter the park as patrons. Isaiah’s module ideas are dismissed, and he is left to continue his regular role as an actor. The story ends when a patron who regularly comes to kill Isaiah at the park brings his son into the module for the first time.

The title story, “Friday Black,” follows a mall retail worker serving hordes of customers who have been infected by a disease that turns them animalistic during Black Friday sales. The protagonist, who is a top salesman at the mall, hopes to win an expensive parka for his mother by outperforming his peers. During his break, the narrator is called back to the floor when his protégé, Duo, abruptly quits. Duo tries to convince him that winning the parka doesn’t matter, and while the narrator initially rejects his message, he decides to use the last remaining parka to save his coworker’s life from a feral shopper.

In “The Lion & The Spider,” a young man takes on a job unloading trucks at a home improvement store after his father suddenly leaves the family. Interspersed with the father’s telling of a fable about a race between the Akan-Ashanti spider god Anansi and a proud lion, the story describes the young man’s life at work, as well as his relationships with his coworkers, Cato and Reese. As the family breadwinner, the young man cannot leave and go to college. Nevertheless, his coworkers encourage him to carry on a life outside of the retail industry. Shortly before graduation, the young man’s father reappears, prompting the young man to reflect on his growth. The father waits for his son to finish his shift so they can go home together.

“Light Spitter” follows Billy “Fuckton” Cropper and Deirdra, two college students who meet as spiritual beings after Fuckton kills Deirdra in a school shooting. Fuckton and Deirdra are brought into the life of a troubled teen named Porter Lanks, who is planning to carry out a shooting of his own. Deirdra makes several attempts to affect Porter’s thinking, which fail. Though Deirdra resents Fuckton for killing her, Fuckton comes to realize that he can relate to Porter’s experience. As Porter goes to school to carry out the shooting, Deirdra and Fuckton work together to show him what little satisfaction he will gain from it. Porter weeps over the revelation and rewrites some graffiti intended to bully him.

In “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing,” a top-performing salesman with the moniker “IceKing” attempts to sell two premium-priced coats to a family. Most of the story presents IceKing’s methodology as a salesman. However, it also explores the insecurity he feels when a new salesgirl named Florence matches his performance. When the family he is serving is unaffected by his sales talk, Florence, who has been promoted to assistant manager, interjects and takes over. IceKing relents but craves his peers’ attention when the family cites Florence for helping them with the sale.

“In Retail” is told by Florence from the previous story, who discusses the need to actively seek happiness when working in retail roles. Her thoughts circle around a late retail worker named Lucy, who is remembered for the spectacle of her suicide. Florence assists an elderly Spanish woman seeking a red shirt for a little girl and identifies various moments of joy in their interaction. When they reach the shirt section, the elderly woman thanks Florence, who goes on to recount their inventory of jeans. When Florence shakes herself out of remembering the day Lucy died, the elderly woman returns to thank her once more for her help.

The final story, “Through the Flash,” takes place in a neighborhood trapped in a time loop by a destructive event known as the “Flash.” A young woman named Ama has an anomalous dream of her late mother, which prompts her and her brother, Ike, to consult an acquaintance named Robert about its meaning. On the way to see him, they encounter a violent neighbor named Carl, whom Ama used to torture in the early days of the Loop. Carl kills Ama, and the next day, he returns to their house so he can kill Ama in front of her family. Ama manages to pacify Carl and apologize for her past violence against him. She puts him to bed, and at the end of the day, she, Ike, and their father stand against the wall of their house, welcoming the next occurrence of the destructive Flash.