A stand-out in the collection is the opening, The Finkelstein 5, that unfolds after a man who decapitated five black children is found innocent of murder. A father slashes his daughter's throat with a butcher's knife, a young woman continuously hunts down a former bully, making his mother watch as she cooks strips of his body. The same day repeats itself, allowing residents to do whatever they desire to each other. In the post-nuclear bomb setting of Through the Flash time has broken. Some are set in Black Mirror-esque sci-fi dystopias, such as in The Era where parents-to-be can opt for "prebirth optimisation", choosing from different personality packages for their children, and where residents receive a mandatory injection of the addictive "good" every morning. The enabling structures are all too recognisable. The shock in each is the realisation that what may at first appear an extreme occurrence is not so far beyond the realm of possibility. They are dark and the untempered violence is confronting, but they also have heart and humour. His 12 short stories are riveting with a sharp blade they eviscerate the structures of class, capitalism and race that underpin our society. If Adjei-Brenyah has shown, he has also proven. Now it belongs to the world and you can't go back on that. Now you are going to have to stand behind the work you have worked on in solitude for many years.
Now your work will be seen by people who are not just your Facebook friends. There is also a realisation that now it is show and prove. "You spend so much of your life on the outside looking in, or thinking you are looking in on something, and then when you are kind of inside it's just so many different feelings. "I have thought about tomorrow everyday for the last 10 years probably, pretty specifically, the actual event of having my friends and family be there to celebrate this thing," Adjei-Brenyah says.
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
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