"The City We Became" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Let's talk about this new take on an urban fantasy!

What did you think?

Some questions to get us started:

1. What did you think of the characters?
2. What did you think of the horror element?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Will you continue the series? Why or why not?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Let's dive in!

[Christopher]

1. The character were decent, I liked the scene at Penn station with the awakening of Manhattan. I didn't love the portrayal of Staten Island. I felt the father of Staten especially felt like a stereotype.
2. I didn't love the horror element, I found the white tendrils images to be more silly than scary for the most part. Some of the scenes, like tossing money at the creatures felt ludicrous.
3. The concept of cities having avatars was really cool, but I didn't buy that NYC was only waking up now, it's been around awhile and has had a storied history. Also maybe it's just me, but I found that there was maybe too heavy-handed an op-ed type feeling underneath the narrative that irked me. I generally agree with the progressive message, but I think I'm seeking more escapist fare right now and I think there could have been more subtlety.
4. I don't plan to continue the series.

[Sandy]

I thought it was a bit weird that Manhattan would be an outsider to NYC. I wonder why the author did that?

I agree with the white tendrils, I didn't think they were scary at all. I generally don't associate white with an antagonist. Maybe that was why.

I did not like the Staten Island character at all. I guess the author had to justify her actions somehow but that character was very annoying to me.

Having said that I really liked the avatar concept even though the author didn't do much to explain anything about the overall concepts of this. Why do cities even get avatars? hmmm

Not sure if I will read on but I might in the hopes that this is explained as it was a quick read for me.

Sad to say although I feel the writing elicits emotions, I really don't get the messages. I guess I just don't really look for them.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Good point about white and antagonism, Sandy! I suspect that was very intentional.

I thought Manny was a good symbol of people who go to New York to "start a new life"--the sort of story that pulls people in to become someone new, someone who has adopted the city as their spiritual home.

[Silvana]

Clearly Jemisin did not write this to please everyone and I respect her being unapologetic about it.

[Oleksandr]

It is a nice novel, written by a talented author but which doesn't bring joy to me. I see quite enough problems in my daily life to use fiction to a large extent as a route to escape them. So political activism while I understand and support the cause is not why I read.

Back to the story. First of all, I have to note that I don't know Lovecraft mythos well enough to see parallels and 'dialogue' with his works. The fact that he was a racist doesn't mean it is ok (for me!) to use stereotypical representations of white characters, like Staten Island story line or jerks in art gallery.

It is ridiculous to question the author, after all it is her concept, but I'd like to see more when/why the city as an avatar is born. I agree with Christopher above that the awakening date is set too late. I assumed that a city is born when it is viewed by outsider as a distinctly different from other cities they know, a distinct 'face' of the city. New York is the city that never sleeps is distinct for decades if not more (I may argue for even the 1770s), so awakening in 2010s-2020s seemed somehow wrong.

I may continue the series, but I'm not sure

[Amanda]

1. I loved Bronca, loved her voice and her personality. I also really liked the way that Manny was represented as the avatar of Manhattan, like Allison said - representing what New York is to outsiders, as well as his deeper relationship with the Primary. I agree with others regarding Aislyn, I understand why she was portrayed the way she was, but her backstory and personality just felt tired and overdone.

2. The horror element was meh to me. I think I would have liked it better if there was no actual outside force opposing the protagonists (or at least a less obvious one), and the conflict was more focused on the real-world obstacles to the city's awakening

3. The mythology of how cities come to life was definitely the part that worked best for me. How some are stillborn, how the process can go so catastrophically that the city itself is forgotten; as well as the powers that the avatars have and how they're connected to their cities. I also enjoyed Veneza's reveal at the end. I'd had a feeling about her for a while, how she seemed a bit closer to the story than the other outsiders we saw, and I'm glad it bore out.

What didn't work, as mentioned above, was the way the antagonist was portrayed, by which I mean not just the woman in white, but the forces opposing them in general. Like Christopher said, it just felt a bit silly, and I'm not sure what parallels Jemison was trying to draw between the real-world horrors that people face and the fictional monsters in the story. Unless it's just that if some extradimensional horror was trying to take us over, they'd have an easy in?

4. I doubt I'll continue the series, unless something about the next installment really catches my eye; there was just too much that didn't do it for me.

[Ellen]

It felt like a commentary of current events at times.
I was amused and not surprised that Chapter Ten was entitled "Make Staten Island Grate Again (st Sao Paulo)". After reading this chapter I dreamed that a Mr. Trump dressed in white was trying to still my tax records.
I did not like the character of Aislyn but I felt sympathy for her childhood and home life. I just wonder why she would be chosen for the city avatar when it was such an important position.
It did seem a typical urban fantasy . I have other series that I would chose to continue before I would this one.

[Travis]

I found Staten Island's dad to be 100% believable. I feel like I've met men just like him way too often in my life. If he seems like a stock character, I wonder if that's because guys who fashion themselves after toxic and narrow visions of masculinity aspire precisely to become stock characters.

[Sandy]

I too have met men like that. I think the more insidious ones are the ones that act with unconscious bias. Those are the ones to watch out for.

I do think we get tired of the stereotype because it persists still.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

For me I don't think it was him that didn't work, it was the sudden lack of nuance for white characters.

it's tricky because I recognize she's tackling the current trend towards open hate, and it's one very critical aspect of the city that Jemisin is discussing. but also it feels like either it's lacking nuance in that I'm not sure we really touch on the "white complacency" element of fascist collaboration, nor do we see white as equating to anything other than a fascist state, which just hasn't quite been my experience in New York and I have complex feelings about that when you consider NYC as a historically important location for refugees and white passing diaspora.

I realize every story doesn't have to be everyone's story, but discussing New York without Jews is weird to me

[Oleksandr]

Allison wrote: "I'm not sure we really touch on the "white complacency" element of fascist collaboration, nor do we see white as equating to anything other than a fascist state"

Just to clear it out for me: under fascist state do you mean the current US administration or Italy 1921-1944, the only self-proclaimed fascist state I recall?

[Banshee]

I have a lot of feelings about this book. Some people already brought up some issues that I had a problem with, but let me just start with the questions, so I structure my thoughts...

What did you think of the characters?
They felt mostly clichéd and unlikable. I felt like the author assumed that the reader knows in advance what they are supposed to represent. I have exactly zero understanding about the history or characteristics of the districts of New York, and I felt like I wasn't given enough information in the book.

What did you think of the horror element?
I'm a bit confused by this question. I thought it was 100% fantasy? If there were horror elements, then they weren't scary for me. I heard that this book was supposed to engage in some way with Lovecraft's legacy, both the appreciated (horror) and the ugly (extreme bigotry). I've never read Lovecraft, though, so...

What worked or didn't for you?
The concept was theoretically interesting. The rest didn't work for me at all. I already mentioned lacking explanation for non-New Yorkers and lackluster horror. Other things I didn't like:
1. Being hit over the head with the message. Including important social issues in fiction is important, but in my opinion it needs to be done right. The Broken Earth was one big story about institutionalized discrimination, but it was done so well that it was hard-hitting and emotional. The City We Became just made me roll my eyes again and again. If I compare the first one to an elaborate statue, the second is a rock that was hit with a hammer a few times.
2. Representation of domestic (psychological) abuse. I really hated how Staten Island was treated. She had a terrible life that left a strong mark on her. But instead of getting help, she was villanized. I treated this a bit personally.
3. One-dimensional villain.

Will you continue the series? Why or why not?
I don't think so. There were too many things that didn't work for me.

[Eva]

Allison wrote: "I realize every story doesn't have to be everyone's story, but discussing New York without Jews is weird to me"

There are over 1 million Jews living in NYC - over 1/8th of its population. And they aren't represented in the story at all - a story that purports to capture both the essence and diversity of this city? And none of the avatars is Jewish??

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Oleksandr wrote: "Allison wrote: "I'm not sure we really touch on the "white complacency" element of fascist collaboration, nor do we see white as equating to anything other than a fascist state"

Just to clear it o..."

The current administration. :) Fascism in US vocabulary means both the specific Italian party and groups who follow the ideals of the Italian Fascist government.

I see some confusion about the Lovecraft bits, so just a really brief overview, Lovecraft wrote about the Elder Gods, beings whose mere presence could destroy human sanity, or induce mass shared hallucinations. They live in R'lyeh, deep under the ocean (so he said) waiting to awaken. His creatures and his horror include a lot of tentacles, a lot of insanity and cults, and "non-Euclidean geometry" by which he meant things with angles and dimensions that are not feasible in physics, even if that's not what that really means.

His politics were...really racist and anti-Semitic. In one of his more famous letters he said "I know [Hitler] is a clown, but God, I *like* the boy" and openly touted the belief that Jews were seeking to destroy the "Aryan race" and that people of color were not entirely human.

I think Jemisin was really in conversation with his legacy in this book, but that also makes me a bit uncomfortable about erasing the Jewish part of this story.

I can sort of see why she'd tiptoe around that...I think she was trying to engage with the parts of NY she understood and loved, and if you're talking about "avatars" you kind of have to rely on stereotypes to an extent, which would have been a very delicate thing to do with someone who is Jewish if the author is not herself affiliated.

One of the things I did really like was the warmth of the characters for their homes, and their responses when threatened. That part felt very big to me--honest, and emotionally resonant.

[Banshee]

@Allison
Thank you for the clarification about Lovecraft. That's actually really helpful.

It makes me think about the target group for the book. I understand wanting to take the well-known work of a person with despicable views, with all these views very clearly on display within that work/art, and then completely flip the core message. But just how many people will fully understand the link between the two? On one hand we have some most typical readers of Lovecraft. Would they even try to engage with work of a diverse author centering around discrimination? On the other hand, we have people who prefer to read diversely. How many of them would know Lovecraft enough to appreciate the parallel?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Great questions, Banshee! What do folks think? Is Lovecraft integrated enough into the genre that folks can reasonably be assumed to have a basic familiarity or is it still so niche and prejudicial that it becomes more obscure?

[Oleksandr]

Eva wrote: "There are over 1 million Jews living in NYC - over 1/8th of its population. And they aren't represented in the story at all - a story that purports to capture both the essence and diversity of this city? And none of the avatars is Jewish??"

If we go by demographics more questions arise:

1. boroughs are quite unequal in size - from less than 0.5mn in Staten Island to over 2.5 mn in Brooklyn - shouldn't there be 5 Brooklyn avatars for one Staten?

2. population is 45% while (2010 Census Data), but only one avatar in 5 (20%) is white. Hispanics have larger share than Blacks (28% vs 25%) but aren't represented in Avatars at all.

3. Men (I guess) are approx. a half of population, but 4 of 5 Avatars are women

So, I just don't think that demographics is important in choosing avatars

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

For me it isn't really a question of demographics so much as legacy. NYC is the largest population of Jewish people outside of Israel, and there's a huuuuge and complicated history that we touch on in so many ways in this book--from the Lovecraft discussion, to the idea of the diaspora in general, and even in the intersections of race, nationality, sexual orientation, and we do have religion thrown in, but not Judaism? Just a strange oversight, especially if we're tackling nazis and phenomena like Q-Anon. If you're talking American conspiracies, it's hard to come by one that doesn't eventually mention something anti-Semitic about the "Jewish controlled media," for example.

And I think that plays out somewhat in the other avatars. We see legacy with the part Lenape Bronca, we get the nod to East Coast hip hop through Brooklyn, we get nods to how Black and Brown queer women transformed New York through many of the cultural movements they've led from Stonewall Riots to #metoo. So, legacy seems to be a big element in the avatars.

[Oleksandr]

Allison wrote: "His politics were...really racist and anti-Semitic. In one of his more famous letters he said "I know [Hitler] is a clown, but God, I *like* the boy" and openly touted the belief that Jews were seeking to destroy the "Aryan race" and that people of color were not entirely human."

I guess this latter became famous (as you said) because of these words. At the same time it was part of his (extremely large) private correspondence. I have to admit, I've read only At the Mountains of Madness and several short stories and he is not an author for my taste. However, the works I've read contained no open racism or antisemitism, and from what I've heard his other works aren't openly hateful either.

Also to note from another conversation about Cthulhu mythos winning Best series Retro Hugo this year, one of the posters suggested that Lovecraft was mentally ill and like many with a psychic condition is afraid of strangers ('the other') which led to his definitely racist and antisemitic statements in his private correspondence.

As to the leaving Jews outside the plot in this book, it is better than what HBO done with their TV series based on Lovecraft Country - installing an antisemitic twist where there was none - https://www.jta.org/2020/09/01/cultur...

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Call of Cthulhu has openly racist things in it, I'll say that. That is a shame about Lovecraft Country!

Hard to say about mental health, of course, and I have a difficult time thinking that helps? A lot of people have mental health issues and do not believe in genocide, you know?

[Silvana]

Allison wrote: "Great questions, Banshee! What do folks think? Is Lovecraft integrated enough into the genre that folks can reasonably be assumed to have a basic familiarity or is it still so niche and prejudicial..."

I was (am?) lukewarm about the Lovecraft integration in the novel because there are already a lot of Lovecraftian homage/inspired/whatever books in the last decade. I groaned when the city was revealed since it was predictable and I was expecting something more.... more original and fantastic, I guess, which I know Jemisin is fully capable of. Then again, this is just the first book. I am confident there will be more.

But then, maybe not many readers have read The Call of Cthulhu or any of Lovecraft work. Maybe by reading this book readers would be more curious to know what inspired it.

[Oleksandr]

Allison wrote: "Hard to say about mental health, of course, and I have a difficult time thinking that helps? A lot of people have mental health issues and do not believe in genocide, you know?"

I fully agree. At the same time in criminal justice a mental state (e.g. "in heat of passion") is taken into account as well as the fact that the prosecuted understands that s/he violated rules/laws. The fact that not every person with mental problems commits crimes is irrelevant in such cases. Voluntary manslaughters happen, but this doesn't mean that all homicides can be treated that way

But I guess I lead the discussion offtopic, for which I apologize.

[Kaa]

The Horror at Red Hook, which I think is likely one of the inspirations for this story, is also notoriously racist.

[Oleksandr]

Allison wrote: "Call of Cthulhu has openly racist things in it,"

Kaa wrote: "The Horror at Red Hook, which I think is likely one of the inspirations for this story, is also notoriously racist."

Thanks for the info. As I've said I read almost nothing by him

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, and no problem about the background info, I personally think it's interesting? Sorry if others are a bit bored ^^

Mental health might be a consideration in delusions, but for purposes of discussing his work, I think the conversation is really how do we integrate such important works to the genre into our shared space when it so actively and vocally reminds so many fans that their personhood is called into question. It's interesting to consider the implications of schizophrenia or something as well and how it shapes the work or the conversation, but I know so little about his mental state, hard for me to say more about that! Definitely an interesting thought though

Kind of bringing it back to City We Became, I was sort of surprised with how she approached Aislyn's mental state. Any thoughts on that?

[Mareike]

1. What did you think of the characters?
I really enjoyed getting to know the characters and watching them grow into their powers/figuring out the connections they had with their boroughs. I liked Bronca and Brooklyn the most. The ways in which the boroughs clashed and had to overcome some of their own preconceptions about each other made them feel very real. I also really liked the reveal about Veneza in the end. I had been wondering if she was some other kind of "fantastic" being, like some sort of "lesser angel" (for lack of a better word) or something, but I did not quite see the reveal about her character coming.

I have a lot of complicated feelings about Aislyn. I definitely felt for her and all the ways in which she's trapped in her life - actually the gaslighting by her father and the control he exerts over her were creepier than some of the other horror elements to me. At the same time, I found myself wondering if I was overly ready to empathize with her precisely because she's a white woman. After all, the other characters have also clearly all gone through their shares of trauma. Basically, I was wondering in what way my own internalized biases were at work there.
I also think, however, that Jemisin was trying to explore the ways in which white women can be trapped by white supremacist patriarchy but still decide to uphold it. In that way, Aislyn, to me, seemed to be the kind of "white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice". She clearly recognizes who Conall is and she has at least an inkling of who her father is, given the things he says and the people he associates with, but she chooses to stay where she is because they're familiar and offer "order" - and the Woman in White knows how to play into that. So, in that way, I think the novel actually tried to explore a certain kind of white complacency.
However, I also hope these things will get more complex in the following books. There's an aside when Aislyn is driving to the library that reads "(Much, much, much later, when the whole business is nearly over, she will look back on this incident and think, Confirmation bias is a bitch.)" We're not at that later point yet, clearly. So maybe Aislyn/Staten Island will eventually (re-)join the rest of the City.

2. What did you think of the horror element?
Like some of the others, I'm not sure the white tendrils really read as overt horror elements to me. There was an impending sense of urgency and dread because the characters were playing catch-up for so much of the book, but the white tendrils in and of themselves weren't really creepy.
The painting that almost draws Bronca in worked a lot better for me in terms of a horror atmosphere. The same is true for the creature that is approaching her from behind when she has that nightly confrontation with the Woman in White.
That being said, I haven't really read Lovecraft and know almost nothing about him, except for some details about his life and views which I gleaned from this episode of "Stuff You Missed in History Class" (and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten a bunch of stuff since I've listened to it), so there's probably a bunch of details/connections I missed.

3. What worked or didn't for you?
I do agree that the Woman in White felt a bit too clichéd at times, but I also got the impression that that was because the entity that presented as the Woman was imitating human behaviors and overplaying some things.

I have been thinking about the absence of a Jewish avatar or recognizably Jewish life in the city since I read your review, Allison, and it does seem downright odd that Jemisin would forget to portray such an important part of the city's history and population. Especially because anti-semitic conspiracy theories do briefly make an appearance (when the book describes one of the videos by that white supremacist artist collective). So....yeah....that has been nagging at me. Right now, I'm clinging to the hope that this absence will be resolved in the following book(s).
Maybe she was afraid of reproducing anti-semitic stereotypes? But then hiring a sensitivity reader - like she did for Bronca's Lenape and Padmini's Tamil heritages - would have been an obvious solution?

4. Will you continue the series? Why or why not?
I definitely will.

[Silvana]

Very useful analysis on Aislyn, Mareike.

[Kaa]

Yes, I really appreciate your comments on Aislyn, Mareike. I had really mixed feelings about her when I read the book, but I do think Jemisin's commentary on white womanhood is excellent and incisive. I felt also that Aislyn's character was a brutal demonstration of the way that people who are marginalized on one axis and are hurt because of it can sometimes choose to channel that hurt against people who are more marginalized instead of against the systems that actually hurt them, often at least in part because those systems seem so overwhelming and untouchable.

I did feel that Jemisin was often beating the reader over the head with her message and the on-the-nose-ness of some of the depictions. But I have a very hard time saying that she was wrong to do this, especially in thinking about how this story might respond to Lovecraft, and in particular The Horror at Red Hook. That story is about the things he feared the most of NYC, namely, the people in the city who he saw as "other" and then made into representations of pure evil. I felt that Jemisin here was responding with a love letter to the parts of the city that Lovecraft demonized and a depiction of the things that she actually has to fear (real, realistic fears) in the city as evil. But I do wonder if the supernatural element, which I also didn't find all that scary, actually takes away from the real life horrors.

And I completely agree that it made no sense for New York to only be born now.

[Lowell]

so, The lack of Jewish representation in a book about NY is really, really problematic. In fact, it's as problematic as a lack of black, or Hispanic representation.

The rest of this post is going to be really uncomfortable, because i'm not going to dance around the topic.


The thing is... the real world is a complicated place, and the history of Jewish/Black relationships in NY is a part of that legacy. With books like Jemisin's it's damn near impossible to separate authorial voice from story - and even more so in a book like this where the history of racism as prejudice are so incredibly relevant.

There is a distinct strain of antisemitism in many parts of black, politically active movements. The history of the Black Hebrew Israelite is one of violent antisemitism AND fighting for the rights of black people. There were certainly Jewish slave owners in the south, and Jews are, for the most part, currently culturally identified as white.

Northern Jews, on the other hand, often benefited from their brief amount of work in the 60s civil rights movement, and then moved on into that white status. There's a lot of black academic work that studies the disparity between how the two different marginalized groups consider those crossovers and interactions.

Additionally, if you think the ADL is a good source (I personally do), then one thing to consider is that, statistically, black people are more likely to hold antisemitic views than white people.

Finally, Jemisin is not subtle about her views - if she had a real problem with Jews, they'd get called out. Instead... they are just a part of the background whiteness that is itself under scrutiny in this book. This may be her experience, or it may just be that she's unwilling to deal with the history of american and specifically NY violence against those who were "not white" historically, but whom are overall part of that demographic *now* (Jews, Irish, Italians, etc...).


TLDR:

The book is by a Person of Color, writing about Persons of Color, and she doesn't give a good god damn about anyone's comfort level - which is ironic, for someone who is normally so carefully inclusive.

[Banshee]

Lowell wrote: "Finally, Jemisin is not subtle about her views - if she had a real problem with Jews, they'd get called out. Instead... they are just a part of the background whiteness that is itself under scrutiny in this book. (...) The book is by a Person of Color, writing about Persons of Color, and she doesn't give a good god damn about anyone's comfort level - which is ironic, for someone who is normally so carefully inclusive."

First of all, it seems to me like it was very important for the author not to include a single white character that would be seen as positive. I don't have experience with Jewish community in the US, so I looked it up, and as you point out, vast majority of American Jews are white. So that might be the reason, I'm just speculating though.

Secondly, every book (and some social media posts) written by Jemisin makes me suspect more and more that she's prejudiced against vegans/vegetarians. How are these two subjects connected? Being a part of one discriminated group doesn't make anyone automatically all-inclusive. There are black people who are antisemitic, homophobic, anti-vegan or sexist. So even if there's no direct proof, we cannot completely rule out the possibility that Jemisin simply has some antisemitic views that she won't voice publicly, because she would be eaten alive. I'm not saying that she is, just that's possible.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Lowell and Banshee, thank you, those are some good thoughts and context. However, I would like to ask that we all focus on the impact (I feel, I saw etc) the author's choices made on us rather than guessing at her intent (she must be...) so that we don't derail what could be a very informative, and hopefully cathartic conversation with assumptions or defenses of someone who isn't here to respond.

So thank you, really important stuff and I know everyone will digest this to handle it kindly and thoughtfully :)

[Banshee]

Allison wrote: "Lowell and Banshee, thank you, those are some good thoughts and context. However, I would like to ask that we all focus on the impact (I feel, I saw etc) the author's choices made on us rather than..."

The problem is that my general feeling for this book was that there was too much aggression and anger here. And now some people brought up even more problems that I myself didn't have enough knowledge to notice. As someone pointed out, it was unapologetic, and clearly wasn't meant to take into consideration how many people it might hurt. It's the author's right.

It's just that it made me so disappointed... I read 4 books by Jemisin before this one, and they were so awesome and powerful. This one was completely different.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Completely understandable and valid, Banshee! Thank you for sharing your frustration and disappointment, I think you're likely not alone in those thoughts.

[Lowell]

Right - last night I was trying to connect the concept of black media erasure to this book - because my reaction is”this is probably what black people feel like when dealing with media, constantly.”

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, I thought that a lot, that so many things in this book feel like "giving someone a taste of their own medicine." Complicated stuff in there, and if I could solve all of it in myself, I'd probably get a Nobel prize haha.

I'm reading a book now that recontextualizes WEB du Bois' idea of double consciousness (being both aware of your own personhood, strengths and the systems of oppression and simultaneously wanting to be part of the majority culture/looking down on those you think "hurt the cause") as dueling consciousnesses, where you kind of slide back and forth between racist and anti-racist opinions of yourself and others. I've been thinking about that as I read, because I think a lot of us have some of this to some extent--like the Lean In movement in second wave feminism or Jews making Jew jokes and so on, and I think this is sort of a fascinating book in that regard.

We see it openly in all of the characters--Brooklyn is both politician and successful East Coast hip hop star. Bronca is Black. She is Lenape, she is queer, and we see all that warring in her. Manny is desperately trying to forget his past self. Padmini is the model immigrant child and also an avatar of a country that she isn't sure is hers. Aislyn hates feeling trapped but fears things outside her cage.

But I also think we get some unconscious parts too, or less conscious, in the things the characters say about themselves and the people they meet, and perhaps most notably, who ISN'T in the book. There we see the war in perception--what is other? Who is in my circle of personhood? Who deserves respect and why? And I think it's those questions that are both most well done and also most (I'm assuming) unintentionally hurtful.

[Mareike]

I would agree that this book doesn't necessarily prioritize the feelings/reactions of white readers. I don't think it completely disregards them either - as I said above, for me, there was compassion in there for Aislyn and her situation, but that doesn't let her off the hook. Did I want her to come around and turn against the Woman in White? Yes. But I don't think it would have felt earned.

Thank you for sharing that, Banshee.
To me, this book didn't feel angrier than the Broken Earth series, but perceptions like that are so personal that there's no real sense debating them.
I will say that I think it is rare in media, still, to see Black people and people of color - and especially Black women and women of color - who get to be angry without either being stereotyped or severely punished for their anger. Yes, these characters are angry at times, but mostly not irrationally so. And they also get to be afraid and caring and overwhelmed, i.e. they get to be full human beings.

I really like you're reading this through the lens of double-consciousness, Allison! What is the other book you mentioned? Dr. Kendi's?

The characters' complexities and their flaws/the ways in which they grate against each other was one of the really strong aspects of this book. Especially in the case of Bronca and Brooklyn. None of them are only good (or evil; except maybe the Woman in White) and I appreciated that.

In a similar vein, what did people think of the twist that cities waking up destroys several thousand parallel worlds? I thought that helped to make the story less clear cut and I actually wish the characters had grappled with it a bit more. It's a dilemma that felt like it was resolved a bit too easily via the threat of the Womsn in White trying to bring her city into the human world.

[Ryan]

Re: Destroying parallel worlds - It helps to make the villain gray rather than outright evil, but ultimately I don't feel it raises the stakes for the characters much. When it comes to us vs them, no matter how many thems there are, people have such a strong self-preservation instinct they will always choose us. And indeed the characters grapple with it a bit but ultimately don't seem to have any reservations about their decision to fight to survive.

Re: Jews - I know nothing about their role in the city's history, but since this is a book about the NYC of the present, is it such a sin to omit them? Are Jews still a significant and distinct (from general whiteness) part of the city's culture?

[Lowell]

Ryan re Jews: yes, they are a serious cultural force there, and it is the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

yeah. you cannot really go to new York without running into something that pulls from the history of the Diaspora in New York. Its not like there's some section that they kind of live in and a couple extra synagogues. it's a more pronounced omission (in terms of population) than excluding Indians from London. And I mentioned Jewish as white, but that isn't to say there aren't thousands of Jewish people of color, too! So she wouldn't have had to have changed the focus to include a big part of New York's heritage.

None of which is to say if you liked this book or didn't notice the lack of Jews that this makes anyone bad or wrong for enjoying something, it's just a huge thing to me, personally, and it really detracted from my ability to relax into the story.

[Silvana]

Mareike wrote: "In a similar vein, what did people think of the twist that cities waking up destroys several thousand parallel worlds?"

It's one of the intriguing parts that I would look forward to read in the sequel. That, and the fact that there'd be some city avatar conference or something? Should be interesting.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, what did folks think of the multiverse, the visit to R'lyeh, and so on? I'd particularly like to hear positive things for a minute since I feel I've been real negative.

[Sandy]

Allison wrote: "yeah. you cannot really go to new York without running into something that pulls from the history of the Diaspora in New York. Its not like there's some section that they kind of live in and a coup..."

You know - forgive my ignorance - but I always thought of the Jewish "culture" as a religion and not an ethnicity. The author didn't talk about Padmini in terms of religion so I guess I just never considered that this would be called out specifically. I don't recall any of their religions being mentioned.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Thanks for bringing that up! It is both! Until 1948 the Jewish people were stateless, so like the Roma or Hmong people they held onto traditions and language outside of just the religious aspect. So, like, growing up, some of my classmates would answer the question "what is your heritage" with "Jewish" because that was the dominant factor in their homes--their families, no matter where they lived before someone came to the US--spoke either Hebrew or Yiddish at home and kept traditions shared within the Jewish culture which are not necessarily the same as Jewish religious traditions (though of course those often become a part of it!)

[Sandy]

Thanks for explaining that to me. Makes more sense now.

[Silvana]

Allison wrote: "Yeah, what did folks think of the multiverse, the visit to R'lyeh, and so on? I'd particularly like to hear positive things for a minute since I feel I've been real negative."

Not positive per se, but more silly. I remember being super curious about what city I would be if I were a city avatar. And then I went into the rabbithole of internet quizzes....

[Mareike]

@Ryan: I think I agree that the information about thecdestruction of other universes it didn't raise the stakes by a lot. But I wonder if it'll become a topic again in the sequels.

@Silvana: I'm super curious about the conference if city avatars and which other cities we'll meet and what they'll be like. And also if we'll learn more about what happened to London.

@Allison: I found the description of R'lyeh fascinating and kinda want to know more about it as a place.
I also wonder if there'll be more of an explanation for the changing tactics and the fact that this seems to be the first time the older cities have met the Woman in White. Did R'lyeh only come alive recently itself? But then what was attacking Earth cities before it did? Or did it just adapt?

[Ryan]

A few questions that came up as I read.

In Chapter 2, Manny and Brooklyn speak, simultaneously, "Oh, come on. The shape of the Earth is non-Euclidean. All that means is that you use different math! Don't get it twisted."

Clearly they were temporarily mind-connected to Padmini. How did this happen? Some side effect of Queens being "born"? And what does this quotation mean: is Padmini talking about her school math, or about the other world? I've read that it's an allusion to Lovecraft, but I don't know how, and how it connects to Jemisin's story.

Sao Paulo and Hong Kong were present to help NYC be born. Why these cities in particular? Is there something special about them in relation to NYC, or is it just that Jemisin is familiar with and/or interested in these cities?

It seems a little too convenient that Bronca, Brooklyn, and Aislyn have names so similar to the boroughs. Were the similarity of the names, perhaps, part of the reason the city chose them to be avatars?

Why was Manny chosen to be the primary's protector? And why does he lust so strongly for him? My guess is that his preexisting attraction to him was amplified by the city so that he would be motivated to be the guardian.

Hong mentions that only two cities (Sao Paulo and NYC) have been born in the Western Hemisphere. What was special about them? Any speculations as to what causes a city to be born? I assume it's some kind of critical mass of culture/distinct identity, but there are plenty of other cities that fit the bill.

In Chapter 13, when Sao Paulo and Hong are talking: "There's an undercurrent. Manny finds himself exchanging a sidelong glance with Bronca. Is this what I think it is?" --- What's going on here?

[Amanda]

Re: Manny as the primary's protector. I figured that in media Manhattan tends to be representative of/synonymous with NYC as a whole. So being that popular representation of the city translates into Manny's stronger relationship with the primary.

One question that I was wondering about, Hong Kong and Sao Paulo both mention that the youngest city is responsible for "mentoring" the next one to come alive. So if Sao Paulo was born in the 60s, why had Hong Kong been responsible for New Orleans?