The City We Became

MINOR SPOILERS IN REVIEW

'The City We Became' had a confused start, an intriguing and thought-provoking core, but ultimately drifted into quite a boring and unsatisfying conclusion. The premise of the novel is quite unique -- cities are personified as types of avatars in actual real people, people whose characteristics in some way embody the city. These avatars, representing New York City must save the city from some kind of extra-dimensional Lovecraftian horror.

I suppose I should get something out of the way first. The novel appealed to me because New York seems to me the only place in the world I have visited where I felt the whole city was performative, like the populace was taking part in a giant LARP about New York. It is true, that towns and cities do have vibes and personalities but these are often accentuated in culture and the reality when you go and have a look yourself is rather different. My visit to New York made me think that the whole place is dishing out it's bad vibes and attitude as though it is part of a game to appear as obnoxious as possible. So here, Jemisin has written a love letter to New York about how its personality is embedded in its inhabitants, but where she sees it as a celebration my experience (albeit limited) makes me go "yeah, so what'. It's like a celebration of a city that already gets an unbelievable focus of attention in world culture, is one of the world's biggest financial centres which causes unbelievable harm on the planet and the perspective is how it's somehow a victim, misunderstood and needs to show its real side -- and then Jemisin presents a New York that is brash, aggressive but somehow okay and it's a tough sell in places.

The book opens by introducing a couple of characters who become very important and in the first couple of chapters we see them going to battle with some towering tendrils breaking through into our universe. It should be exciting and effective but I struggled with it. I found it difficult to visualise what was happening and quite difficult to engage with and connect to. On another day I may have put the book down after a couple of chapters as a "did-not-finish'. I am kind of glad I stayed with it though because once the novel found it's voice and it's pacing, I quite enjoyed most of it. It's a story about the different boroughs coming together to save the city.

What Jemisin does is try to celebrate all the different boroughs in their diversity and to a large extent it works. I think she is trying to tell me, the person who didn't particularly like New York, that "it ain't like that, it's a wonderful place rich in character and diversity', and you know? She may be right. There is however a fine line between a celebration of diversity and slipping into caricature -- I kind of felt the novel in places were slipping into stereotypes and perhaps wasn't reflecting the diversity and complexity of places and cultures. It's really hard to do that in a novel anyway, but I am not sure the novel doesn't sometimes slip into something it is trying hard to avoid (I should also note that Jemisin worked with sensitivity readers to improve the novel so perhaps my interpretation should be taken at face value).

One thing I really liked about the novel was the representation, many characters are LGBT, many are women, and many are people of colour. I suppose a minor gripe could be that some of those characters are presented at quite face value (there is one character who is only in the book for one character, at one point he says something like, "Hi, I'm trans' and then he is never mentioned again). So, whilst many characters are LGBT it kind of feels like writing "by the way I am trans' isn't really exploring that person in the fiction and felt a little "box-ticking' rather than real representation. The counter-argument of course is that trans characters should not be defined solely by their gender. (As a complete aside, whilst there are plenty of novels about cis-het white men which largely shout loudly about being cis-het white men it shouldn't be an expectation for novels about marginalised groups to have novels just about their gender or sexuality or whatever, and they should be fully rounded humans in their own right). Another factor is now I feel like I am being critical of Jemisin for putting in more effort into representation than 95% of the authors I read so go figure...

If you haven't worked it out early (I did), don't worry because Jemisin makes it clear what is really going on here. This novel is a giant FUCK YOU to H.P. Lovecraft and his disgusting racism. For one (and we are getting into spoiler territory here so you have been warned) the city that tries to destroy New York is R'lyeh -- the lost city in Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu. The Enemy is full of eldritch horror of tentacles, tendrils snaking its way into New York to consume and overwhelm it. The Enemy is White, personified as a white woman, it's tendrils and towers are white. It tries to takeover New York "legitimately' with its power, wealth and Whiteness through gentrification and media. Even before Jemisin tells us, I remember the story "The Horror at Red Hook' which is full of absolutely disgusting racism towards black people, Jews, Irish and Italian immigrants to New York. As much as I have enjoyed Lovecraft's stories his racism pollutes his work.

And so, onto Whiteness as The Enemy. It isn't subtle at all, and quite frankly I'm glad it isn't to a large extent. Jemisin is telling us that racism is the biggest threat to New York and defeating it is the only way to save the city. I've seen a number of mostly white reviewers somehow try and portray this novel as somehow racist towards white people. It isn't and, in my opinion, I enjoyed this part of the novel. It's Whiteness that swallows up, assimilates and destroys communities, it's Whiteness that seeks to control and conform and homogenise -- just look at the way American culture (through a lens of Whiteness) has an almost insidious reach around the world, promoting values that most of the world perhaps would never ascribe to. The novel isn't racist -- racists are racist, and in West white people if not overtly racist themselves DO benefit from structural racism or the legacy of slavery and colonialism. I think if white people are offended by the book, I suspect they need to feel that uncomfortableness and perhaps reflect.

I mean -- Jemisin doesn't have a crystal ball, but the idea of a white woman being the enemy to the city won't feel that unfamiliar to people of colour. It's notable that AFTER this novel was written this story went around the world - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/nyregion/amy-cooper-false-report-charge.html. Honestly? This scene could have come out of the book, and this was a real-life threat to a black man who in other scenarios could have had his life at risk by racist cops. So yeah, Whiteness as The Enemy may make some feel uncomfortable but so what -- it's real (and as another aside, how often do we see "black, sprawling masses' as a threat in novel...does replacing the word black with white trigger people so much?).

My absolute favourite part of the book was when alt-right activists are using their social media presence and powerful backers to fuck with a community art space and the artist community fight back. I punched the air during the chapter at the sense of solidarity and community fight back, partially because we see so much of the alt-right presenting their selves as victims as they commit violence against communities and continue to have their voice heard as part of "balance'.

Where perhaps the novel falls a little is that it doesn't explore the complexity of New York City's relationship to race and how the cities racism impacts on others. For instance, there is little appreciation of Jewish, Irish and Italian migrants to New York and how they were definitely victims of racism but now almost certainly benefit from their Whiteness. Much is mentioned of New York being built on the bones of indigenous Americans and slaves, but what of the white working class who were victims of class and racial or cultural prejudice who toiled to raise the towers. Where do their bones rest? I also struggle to reconcile the novel treating Whiteness / racism as the enemy when the cities wealth is derived from capitalism, Wall Street and the theft of the world's resources and labour of the working class. Considering the proportion of unearned income vs earned income in America is higher than the rest of the world, and New York is the nations primary facilitator of that I find the novels refusal to engage with this a little disappointing. It feels like the harm the city does is airbrushed. Indeed, in a novel about the celebration of cities it is a shame that there is not more exploration of the damage they do, not just to the environment but the way they swallow up communities and towns and villages around them. One shouldn't read the novel as "this is the real New York' and rather should engage with it as "this is Jemisin's idealised New York'.

The treatment of Staten Island overall was a little disappointing. The novel makes it clear throughout that Staten Island is technically part of New York but it's not really at heart. It's probably true, but the novel is so much of a sledgehammer it says "New York is diverse, tolerant and progressive and Staten Island is white and racist and conservative'. I mean, if that was true how did scum like Rudy Giuliani have such a long career there and get elected in? There is a real sleight of hand going on I think that perhaps Jemisin isn't engaging with. And it's a shame because Staten Island is one of the more interesting characters in the book -- she's shy, neurotic, terrified and scared -- and yes, she is racist, but she's sheltered but absolutely overwhelmed by racist, corrupt patriarchy. Out of all the characters in the book it is Staten Island who is the biggest victim, she's nearly raped by Nazi scum, she's a victim of psychological and emotional violence with simmering physical threat from her cop dad. As a reader I really wanted her to break free -- and the novel threatens for her to try. It's kind of all goes wrong though -- she's frightened when other avatars land on her patch and lashes out (and to be fair any person of colour reading this will recognise the reaction when they are somewhere other people think they don't belong). When she tries to fight back, I cheered as Nazi filth got fucked up but there is a big but. Staten Island gets it wrong, when the other boroughs reach out, she pushes back but instead of trying to win her back the other boroughs go "oh okay' and get someone else (I won't spoil it but it's so obvious you won't miss it before the reveal). It's such a shame because it is like New York doesn't even try to bring Staten Island into the fold -- they give up so easily and Staten Island is the character that is redeemable and shows potential for growth -- the others largely being convenient caricatures.

(As another aside, I met Staten Island when I was there. I saw a young white woman go through something so harrowing and distressing I'll never forget it. When I read the book I went back to that time, where a woman who was scared and terrified and had nowhere else to go reached out for New York and ultimately it was New York that saved her. I won't go into detail, for you never know who is reading but it took me right back. So yeah, she's real.)

And then to the conclusion of the novel, well it just petered out really. An awful lot of words were expended for not a lot and a conclusion that took a while to get there but was ultimately quite unsatisfying. It kind of ran out of steam. I was left with the notion that there are loads of good ideas in the book, but have I read a good story? No, not really. I can't really see myself wanting to pick up any future novels in the series which is a shame because there was a lot I liked.