“A badass debut by any measure ― nimble, knowing, and electrifying.” ― Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle "...'My Monticello' is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it." ― The Washington Post Winner of the Weatherford Award in Fiction A winner of 2022 Lillian Smith Book Awards One of the Women's National Book Association's 2022 Great Group Reads Named one of the best books of 2022 by WGN Radio A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a white militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America. Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation. In “Control Negro,” hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,” a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.” Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.” United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction. #3 on TIME Magazine's 10 Best Fiction Books of 2021 A New York Times Notable Book of the Year One of The Washington Post's 50 notable works of fiction A NPR's Books We Love 2021 Christian Science Monitor: Best Reads of 2021 Atlanta Journal-Constitution: top 10 Southern books of 2021 Kirkus Best Books of 2021: Best Debut and Best Short Fiction Kirkus Reviews’s “11 Great Fiction Writers Who Made Debuts in 2021” A Bookforum Best Book of the Year Washington Independent Review of Books: Our 51 Favorite Books of 2021 One of New York Public Library's Best Books for Adults Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 45 new books for holiday gifts in 2021 LitHub: The Best Reviewed Short Story Collections of 2021 One of Virginia Living's Favorite Books of 2021 Garden & Gun's Favorite Books of 2021 NPR Maureen Corrigan's 2021 Best Books list A Booklist Editor's Choice Third Place Books: Top 10 Books of the Year “Simply put, a masterly feat. . . . The novella reminds us of what fiction does best: reflect our reality back at us just when we need it most. “My Monticello” aches with both resonance and timeliness, engaging in rich conversation with recent, real-life events never far from our minds.” ―Bridgette M. Davis, New York Times “Jocelyn Nicole Johnson uses history to spectacular effect. . . . The storytelling is propulsive, as we follow these refugees along a harrowing journey, with danger ever at their heels. My Monticello is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it.” ― Washington Post “I want to sell this one more than I want to sell my own book . . . this is a master storyteller arrival.” ―Isaac Fitzgerald, The TODAY Show “Jocelyn Nicole Johnson's short-story collection aims its powerful beam on history's proximity, racial trauma, and community survival...” ― The Christian Science Monitor “An impressive debut.” ― People Magazine “Johnson’s writing is exciting and nervy.” ― Glamour “Johnson’s historically tethered story collection is startlingly timely… A compilation of vivid, complex stories, at times reminiscent of works by Octavia Butler, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison and Colson Whitehead, “My Monticello” is a startling, beautiful debut collection.” ― Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Jocelyn Nicole Johnson provides a mesmerizing antidote in her new story collectio