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My Monticello: Fiction Audiobook
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Publisher Description
An AudioFile Earphones Award winner
Read by a full cast of narrators, featuring LeVar Burton and Aja Naomi King
“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
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 collection that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
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“?My Monticello…holds so much in its gaze—great love and great oppression, tremendous individual courage, and systemic racism, futures of joyful justice and futures of extremism…[A] breathtaking, artful book.”
— Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author
Quotes
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“Depicts finely drawn Black characters awash in microaggressions across Virginia, past and present.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“My Monticello…holds so much in its gaze—great love and great oppression, tremendous individual courage, and systemic racism, futures of joyful justice and futures of extremism…[A] breathtaking, artful book.”
— Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author -
“These chilling, thought-provoking, and expertly crafted stories showcase Johnson’s range and ability—they broke my heart as well as my brain. A stunning collection.”
— Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown
Awards
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A New York Times Notable Book of 2021
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A Time Magazine Top 10 Book of 2021
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A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
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A Christian Science Monitor Book of the Year
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An Atlanta Journal Constitution Pick of Best Books of 2021
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A Garden & Gun magazine pick of 2021
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A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
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A Virginia Living Magazine Pick of 2021
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An NPR Best Book of the Year
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Among longlisted titles for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Guide to the 100 Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among shortlisted titles for National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Christian Science Monitor Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among shortlisted titles for L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist, 2022
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Among longlisted titles for Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Washington Post Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for NPR Best Book of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for NYPL Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Guide to the 100 Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among shortlisted titles for National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Christian Science Monitor Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among shortlisted titles for L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist, 2022
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Among longlisted titles for Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Washington Post Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for NPR Best Book of the Year, 2021
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Among longlisted titles for NYPL Best Books of the Year, 2021
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About Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is an author whose writing has appeared in Guernica, The Guardian, Phoebe, Prime Number Magazine, and elsewhere. Her short story “Control Negro” was anthologized in Best American Short Stories 2018, guest edited by Roxane Gay, and read live by LeVar Burton as part of PRI’s Selected Shorts series. She has been a fellow at Hedgebrook, Tin House Summer Workshops, and VCCA. She is a veteran public-school art teacher.
About January LaVoy
January LaVoy, winner of numerous awards for narration, was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She is an American actress best known for her character Noelle Ortiz on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. In addition to working extensively in narration and television, including roles on Law & Order and All My Children, she has worked on and off Broadway as well as in regional theater.