Book Review: The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

 

´Her co-workers could publish books about Bitcoin and Middle Eastern conflicts and black holes, but most of them couldn´t understand why it was so important to have a more diverse publishing house´.

Based on the presentations I´ve read, The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris was ticking all the right boxes: featuring the publishing industry and the non-literary critera governing sometimes the choices of editors; its lack of non-white diversity; the competition between women, black women particularly; even the focus on hair as a significant identity marker was appealing. And, indeed, the book do have separate developments or intertwin but it´s so hard to catch so many fish. 

Nella is an editorial assistant at Wagner Books, owned by a certain Richard Wagner. She is the only Black girl in the office, until Hazel, an enthusiastic and self-aware Black woman is hired. The two of them seem to make a great team, until they don´t. And Nella starts receiving threatening anonymous messages encouraging her to leave the publishing company. Wagner Books has though in its decade-long history another Black girl story, of a female author that created a humongous scandal in the 1980s.

The timeline goes back and forth, from 1980 to the 2020s, and usually such a dynamic enriches the story. Until, it doesn´t and one feels stuck in different time capsules. The action enfolds slowly until it is suddenly cut to switch to another timeline until the next switch. 

Nella and Hazel, for their identity references, do complete each other, but as humans, their features are often simplified and their personalities are incomplete. Like in the case of the big story itself, their personalities are made up of so many dots that may never connect together in the end.

Although I am mostly attracted to fast literary paces, I am capable to appreciate a good slow story, but in this case, I may openly confess that my patience was quite often put on trial. Still, I was about to give up many times and only my stubborness was the reason why I did not give up. 

However, although I enjoyed the writing, I was not convinced by the architecture of the story and the characters´ dynamics. Which leaves a lot of alternatives to other possible books on those topics.

Rating: 2.5 stars