My Monticello

My Monticello is a collection of five short stories and a concluding novella, set in Virginia. The stories explore racial identity, belonging, displacement, and the legacies of American racism through varied narrative forms. The collection builds toward its title novella, in which a young Black woman who is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings leads a group of displaced neighbors to shelter at Monticello, Jefferson's historic plantation home, after armed white men attack their community.

In "Control Negro," Professor Cornelius Adams, a Black history professor, writes a letter to his secret biological son revealing a lifelong social experiment. After arriving at his university in 1985, Adams was mistaken for a janitor and found a racist cartoon depicting him as an ape among student papers. These experiences prompted a central question: Could America see a Black man as he truly was, no matter his achievements? Adams conceived of a "Control Negro," a Black boy raised with every advantage enjoyed by average American Caucasian males. He had an affair with a married graduate student, and when she became pregnant, Adams secretly funded the boy's upbringing while shaping his life through proxies. Years later, the young man transfers to Adams's university. Adams spots him outside a bar and calls the police to report a "suspicious young man," insisting the call was a test of the system. The police respond with brutal force, leaving the young man bloodied on the pavement. Adams writes a viral essay about the incident and later sees his son at a protest, bandaged but present.

"Virginia Is Not Your Home" follows, in second-person address, a woman born in rural Virginia and named after the state. She rejects her origins, choosing a new name at college and studying French before traveling to Paris, where she marries a French photographer. The marriage confines her to suburban motherhood near DC while her husband travels for work. After her father dies, the family moves back to her hometown, where her mother's dementia worsens and the marriage ends. At a Walmart, an old acquaintance calls out her birth name, and the protagonist explodes in rage. She eventually discovers her father's letters, hand-addressed to "Virginia," and resolves to start again.

"Something Sweet on Our Tongues" is narrated collectively by 10-year-old students at a predominantly Black elementary school. They describe routines shaped by poverty and introduce key figures: Moses, the strongest boy, who commands the others to endure his punches; Richard Lordly, a bookish African immigrant; and Cherida Smith, a girl with Type 2 diabetes whose mother recently died. During Library, the children defy a teacher's demand for silence by singing. Moses climbs a table and nearly attacks the teacher before being removed and returned to class. At day's end, Moses signals the boys to attack Richard. They beat him savagely and stop only when Moses calls their names.

"Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse" takes the form of a checklist. A single Black mother approaching 40 searches for a house on a hill while the world deteriorates. She lives in a flooding basement rental, earns a third of her white colleagues' salaries, and monitors environmental collapse. She stockpiles supplies and begs forgiveness from her daughter, Baby Girl, for an abusive marriage and an unstable childhood. She resolves to keep refreshing listings.

In "The King of Xandria," Mr. Attah, a Nigerian immigrant in Alexandria, Virginia, privately calls the city "Xandria" because the name echoes that of his 13-year-old son, Alex. Mr. Attah has secretly lost his job but hides this from Alex and his grown daughter, Justina. His wife was killed in a market bombing in the Niger Delta, and he brought the family to America. When called to Alex's middle school, Mr. Attah erupts at staff who recommend the boy be evaluated for learning disabilities. Alex tells his father plainly that he is failing and needs help. Stunned, Mr. Attah agrees. Outside, Alex confronts his father about never being at work and walks away. Driving recklessly, Mr. Attah considers driving until the road ends, but he spots tundra swans on a hotel pond, lost migrants that have persisted through the season, and he stops.

The title novella, "My Monticello," is narrated by Da'Naisha Hemings Love, a young Black college student and descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. After catastrophic storms knock out the power grid in her Virginia college town, armed white men descend on First Street, a cluster of public-assisted housing, setting homes on fire. Da'Naisha, her grandmother MaViolet, and her white boyfriend Knox flee in an abandoned city bus. They are joined by neighbors, including Devin, Da'Naisha's childhood ex-boyfriend, and his twin cousins Ezra and Elijah, who shoot back to cover the escape, along with Ira and Carol, a white couple from across the road.

Da'Naisha drives to Monticello, where guards admit the group after recognizing Da'Naisha from her previous summer working security there. She reveals that MaViolet is a verified descendant of Jefferson and Hemings, confirmed by oral history and DNA analysis. Da'Naisha is secretly pregnant and unsure whether the father is Knox or Devin, with whom she slept during Knox's absence.

The group establishes rules for communal living, agreeing to share resources and protect one another. After conflicts nearly fracture them, MaViolet's singing draws everyone back together. Da'Naisha leads the group up the hill past Mulberry Row, the former slave quarters, to the main house. MaViolet has a severe asthma attack, and Da'Naisha administers the single inhaler from her grandmother's pocket, knowing she left a full supply at home. In the basement library, Da'Naisha finds a photograph of MaViolet at a descendants' reunion and publicly declares her family's connection to the house. MaViolet is installed in Jefferson's own bedchamber.

Over the following days, additional refugees arrive, reporting that armed men patrol the roads below. Da'Naisha reads Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, which predicts that racial prejudice will "produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race" (138). MaViolet's health declines as her medication runs out.

Knox and Carol volunteer to drive to town for medication, their white skin offering protection. Da'Naisha and Devin hide in the trunk, where Devin reveals he knows Da'Naisha is pregnant. Before they reach town, armed men block the road and open fire. The group escapes on foot to a nearby orchard, where a large white community refuses to help. From the hilltop they glimpse their hometown in ruins before returning to Monticello through the woods.

Back at the house, they learn that the armed men, who call themselves "the True Men," have sent a messenger demanding the group surrender Monticello within 48 hours. The messenger breaks down, revealing that the men have taken his young daughters.

The group decides to fight. Devin tells Da'Naisha to claim the baby is Knox's, saying the child will have a better chance with Knox as the father. He gives her his lighter and walks away. Da'Naisha tells Knox about the pregnancy, and he responds with joy. On the group's 19th day on the mountain, MaViolet dies. They bury her wrapped in faded curtains, halfway between Jefferson's family graveyard and the unmarked slave burial ground.

As the deadline approaches, Da'Naisha prepares Molotov cocktails, resolving to burn the house rather than surrender it. She writes a final account, recording everyone's names, and places the pages inside Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia beneath MaViolet's photograph. The novella ends on the brink of the attack, with Da'Naisha envisioning their spirits joining all who have lived and died on that ground, forming "one great glow of souls lighting the way back home" (212).