The Black Fantastic and Not Not Normal: On Beyond Cisgender XI
Jeff Baker
This is the latest installment in this column’s occasional feature “On Beyond Cisgender,” suggested by Amy Liebowitz several years ago and spotlighting books recommended for High School readers that go beyond the usual “white, male, cisgender paradigm.” This time around, two books to look at. One deliberately written for kids, one not.
First, here’s a look at “The Black Fantastic,” a recent anthology of “Afrofuturist stories” edited by Andre M. Carrington from 2025.
The anthology blends newer writers with more familiar names, and benefits immensely from Carrington’s introduction which touches on not only the history of the genre of afrofuturism and the stories in the book but on the culture, or cultures that produced them.
“The main value of Black speculative fiction today isn’t that it brings Blackness to places that are especially antiblack…Rather, it’s that it demonstrates and exemplifies yet another flourishing of Black creativity, extending our thinking, feeling, “otherwise” presence into the world.” (From the Introduction.)
Such tales rage from Dawolu Jabari Anderson’s “Sanford and Sun,” which blends a perfectly-executed riff on the classic TV series with ruminations on the power of art and myth. Tara Campbell’s “The Orb” in which a most unusual alien gives birth, in a tale told by one of its caregivers.
Phenderson Djeli Clark (“Dexter Gabriel by day,” as his author bio puts it.) gives us “The Secret Lives Of the Nine Negro Teeth Of George Washington” which blends history, fantasy and horror in recounting the events on an alternate earth of magic and mermen and sorcerers which did not escape the horrors of African slavery.
Craig Laurance Gidney blends drag, supernatural bargains and a tinge of horror in a story of one performer’s search for that perfect outfit. Maybe too perfect.
All in all, a fine anthology of eminently readable stories.
Our second book recommendation, this one written for younger readers: Peter E. Fenton’s YA novel “Not Not Normal” This is a “Hi/Lo,” a “high interest, low reading complexity book” meant for young readers who do not have a high reading level for one reason or another. Publisher Lorimer has featured a good many of these under their “Real Love” imprint. I’ve read/reviewed several of thm and they are novella length and excellent!
Jordan Shepherd is starting his Junior Year of High School. He is devoted to order and sameness and loathes change but he’s planning on making a big change (for him) namely re-naming the school book club he runs. In his corner are people like his widowed Veterinarian Dad and Emma, a friend from school who admits she’d consider dating him “if you didn’t prefer boys.” He’s out to his father and to his close friends and he and his Dad are also dealing with the loss of Jordan’s Mom several years earlier. His refuge is books, especially the sci-fi books that were his Mom’s.
As this is a romance, Jordan meets someone: Out and proud Nathan. Chaos to Jordan’s Order. But as Jordan has panic attacks, Nathan has his problems as well.
None of this seems forced or contrived and Fenton handles the characters realistically as well as the backdrop of Canadian High School life in 2024 (when the book came out.)
And how does Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night” tie into all of this?
Very well as a matter of fact!
Here are links:
to “The Black Fantastic” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212808320-the-black-fantastic?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_19
and “Not Not Normal” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210906122-not-not-normal?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_14
Jeff Baker writes about reading and writing sci-fi, fantasy and horror and other sundry matters on or around the Thirteenth of every month. Like the fictional Jordan, his refuge is books. He writes at least one story a week on his blog https://authorjeffbaker.com/ and wastes time on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ and BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/jeffbakerauthor.bsky.social and on Mastodon (as “Mike Mayak.”) https://mastodon.otherworldsink.com/@MikeMayak