Publisher's Weekly Review
Harris debuts with a dazzling, darkly humorous story about the publishing industry and the challenges faced by a Black employee. Nella Rogers, an overworked editorial assistant, navigates white privilege and microaggressions as the only Black person in her department at New York City trade publisher Wagner Books. That is until the arrival of chic Hazel-May McCall. Nella withstands being mistaken for Hazel, "the Other Black Girl," and reviewing a problematic manuscript written by a bestselling white author with horribly one-dimensional depictions of a Black single mom. Many of the company's higher-ups have the trappings of material success (Ivy League pedigrees, renovated summer homes), and their attempts to cultivate diversity fall flat, notably with the publisher's "Diversity Town Halls" and its sheepish attempts to deal with racism ("the elephant in the room," Harris writes, "No one really knew what the elephant was. Or where the elephant was"). When Nella receives an anonymous note reading "Leave Wagner. Now," her hopes for a career at the company begin to crumble. Meanwhile, Hazel, seemingly undeterred by office politics, is not the ally she appears to be. While the novel overflows with witty dialogue and skillfully drawn characters, its biggest strength lies in its penetrating critique of gatekeeping in the publishing industry and the deleterious effects it can have on Black editors. This insightful, spellbinding book packs a heavy punch. Agent: Stephanie Delman, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (June)
Booklist Review
Nella Rogers lives on high alert as a young Black woman in a very white publishing company, where she is underpaid and desperate to make an impression. All her life she's lived with the reality that "we have to work twice as hard, always," feeling like an outsider in both white and Black worlds. When "the other Black girl," Hazel-May McCall, starts at the company, Nella is relieved to have a co-worker who gets it; she even gains the confidence to confront a white author about the racist portrayal of the only Black character in his book. The aftermath of the confrontation sets Nella wondering whether Hazel really has her back, and anonymous notes telling Nella to leave the company fuel her growing unease. Racist behavior in the workplace, white colleagues' awkward attempts to pretend it doesn't exist, and the exhaustion of being Black in white spaces are all encapsulated in a pitch-perfect way by Harris, whose introspective Nella will stay with readers. The story takes a fantastical turn that doesn't land quite as well as the office-politics aspect of the tale, but, still, this compelling debut thriller will be in demand; a must for public libraries.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up--As the only Black employee at Wagner Books, 26-year-old Nella Rogers has always felt alone in her workplace, trying and failing at every attempt to bring greater awareness to the publishing house where she is an editorial assistant. When Hazel, a Black girl from Harlem who initially offers similar thoughts on a troublesome manuscript, appears, it feels to Nella like a leap forward, until Hazel begins following the company line and Nella starts receiving notes threatening her to leave Wagner. The story starts slowly but builds quickly as Nella tries to figure out who is leaving her the notes, while watching Hazel become the office's star. This main story line is interrupted with historical segments that, while occasionally referencing figures who might not be familiar to readers, illustrates an industry where tokenism remains all too common. VERDICT A debut novel that provides a look at what it can be like to face insurmountable obstacles in the workplace and a narrative that continues to build to a satisfactory and surprising conclusion. A good choice for general purchase.--Betsy Fraser, Calgary P.L., Canada
Guardian Review
There's a loneliness in being the only one; it resonates throughout Zakiya Dalila Harris's imaginative and audacious debut novel. The heroine is Nella Rogers, an ambitious black editorial assistant at Wagner Books, a prestigious American publishing house where white Ivy League graduates with trust funds take on low-wage editorial salaries in order to ascend the corporate ladder. When Nella joins, it's been well over two decades since Wagner's brilliant but scandal-engulfed black editor fled New York City, desperately scratching her itching scalp - a cleverly placed hint of the way Harris's novel will use the importance of hair products in the lives of black women to startling effect. Nella represents a new, younger generation of would-be editors hoping to infuse cultural diversity and equity into an industry that has historically excluded people of colour. She's been there for two years, and she's ripe for a promotion. But her boss implies that Nella's focus is off-kilter: "I wish you'd put half the effort you put into those extracurricular diversity meetings into working on the core requirements." The work environment at Wagner is one where "open-space assistants" subsist on leftovers and fruit while their superiors dine at swanky restaurants and vacation in summer homes. Career stagnation is both a risk and a reality. Enter a fresh "OBG" or Other Black Girl, Hazel-May McCall, smelling distinctly of Brown Buttah, a fragant cocoa butter hair product that's also a staple in Nella's haircare regimen. The girl had a wide, symmetrical face, and two almond-colored eyes perfectly spaced between a Lena Horne nose and a generous forehead. Her skin was a shade or two darker than Nella's maple complexion, falling somewhere between hickory and pecan. And her locs - each one as thick as a bubble tea straw and longer than her arms - started out as a deep brown, then turned blonde as they continued past her ears. She'd gathered a bunch and piled them on top of her head in a bun; the locs that hadn't made it hung loosely around the nape of her neck. This passage is telling for many reasons, not least of which is the importance of skin colour and hair in African American culture, a holdover from slavery and colonisation. Nella grew up with permed hair, but has gone natural with partial success. Unlike Hazel, she doesn't yet possess the confidence or knowledge to finesse her natural do in a conservative workplace. Still, Nella's happy to have another black woman in the office and quickly takes Hazel into her confidence, showing her how to manage their fickle bosses. But shortly after Hazel's arrival, Nella starts to receive anonymous threatening notes telling her to leave Wagner Books. And here begins the kind of office intrigue that's bound to make The Other Black Girl a book to discuss. Hazel comes across initially as perfection itself, with a handsome, well-connected artist boyfriend and a winning personality that allows her to code-switch fluidly: speaking in a manner designed to assuage white anxiety around people of colour, and playing up her down-to-earth, Harlem-born black activist credentials in a way that makes the white staff feel comfortably "woke". Nella's chance at a promotion withers when she gives honest feedback on a novel written by one of Wagner's bestselling white male authors that features an ill-conceived pregnant black opioid addict named Shartricia Daniels. When asked for her take on the book, Hazel doesn't object to the stereotypes. There are moments when The Other Black Girl feels like two novels woven together as one: a satire that uproots the insidious ways race and class merge in office dialogue and politics, and a thriller with echoes of the great science fiction writer Octavia Butler. I wish Harris had been given more room to set up consistent signposts, and to delve more deeply into some of the secondary characters and subplots for greater clarity and balance. But it is true that daring novels often break with form and take chances. Readers should relish this glimpse into the publishing world and its original take on black professional women striving to hold on to their authentic selves and their tresses.
Kirkus Review
In Harris' slyly brilliant debut, a young editorial assistant is thrilled when her glaringly White employer hires another Black woman--but it soon becomes clear there's something sinister about the new girl, who isn't what she seems. Young, literary, and ambitious, Nella Rogers has spent the last two years as an editorial assistant at Wagner Books, a premier New York City publishing house, where, for the entirety of her (somewhat stalled) tenure, she's been the only Black person in the room. How she feels about this depends on the day--for all her frustrations, she can't help but be a little proud of her outsider status--but still, she's excited when she detects another Black girl on her floor: finally, someone else who gets it. And she does, at first. Wagner's newest editorial assistant, Hazel-May McCall, cool and self-possessed, is quick to befriend Nella, echoing her frustrations with the never-spoken racial politics of their office, encouraging her to speak up. But it doesn't take long for Nella to realize there's something off about Hazel, even if she can't quite put her finger on it. There's something weird about how easily she fits in among the higher-ups at Wagner, about the way she's instantly and universally beloved by top editors, the way her story--born in Harlem, daughter of civil rights activists, a grandfather who died protesting--exactly matches their ideas about Blackness in a way that Nella's middle-class suburban childhood never will. And then, shortly after Hazel's arrival, the first anonymous note arrives on Nella's desk: "Leave Wagner Now." Hazel? And if not Hazel, then who? Nella begins searching for answers--and in the process, finds herself at the center of a dangerous conspiracy that runs far deeper than she ever could have known. If it sounds like a moralistic sledgehammer of a novel--well, it would be if Harris were any less good. In her hands, though, it's a nuanced page-turner, as sharp as it is fun. A biting social satire--cum-thriller; dark, playful, and brimming with life. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Harris's compelling debut is part satire and part thriller, topped off with a good measure of social horror. Nella Rogers is an underpaid, overstressed editorial assistant struggling to gain recognition and respect as a Black woman at a high-powered New York publishing house. When another Black woman, coolly confident Hazel-May McCall, joins the team, Nella is thrilled. Nella's initial elation sours, however, as she soon discovers that Hazel is laser-focused on upward mobility, not solidarity. Primary narrator Aja Naomi King fully communicates the office's unsettling atmosphere, where sly microaggressions are pronounced with sweet smiles. King's measured portrayal of Nella is masterful, bringing out her infectious passion as well as her helpless anger and increasing despair. King deftly brings out the nuances in Nella and Hazel's speech, seamlessly code-switching from silkily professional to relaxed and casual. Narrators Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Heather Alicia Simms, and Bahni Turpin complement King's performance, voicing the points of view of other Black women in Nella's circle, all of whom endured constant trials as they sought success. VERDICT This thought-provoking novel will appeal to listeners looking for a socially conscious, horror-laced version of Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada.--Sarah Hashimoto, Jackson Dist. Lib., MI
Excerpts
Chapter 1 1 July 23, 2018 Wagner Books Midtown, Manhattan The first sign was the smell of cocoa butter. When it initially crept around the wall of her cubicle, Nella was too busy filing a stack of pages at her desk, aligning each and every one so that the manuscript was perfectly flush. She was so intent on completing this task--Vera Parini needed everything to be flush, always--that she had the nerve to ignore the smell. Only when it inched up her nostrils and latched onto a deep part of her brain did she stop what she was doing and lift her head with sudden interest. It wasn't the scent alone that gave her pause. Nella Rogers was used to all kinds of uninvited smells creeping into her cubicle--usually terrible ones. Since she was merely an editorial assistant at Wagner Books, she had no private office, and therefore no walls or windows. She and the other open-space assistants were at the mercy of a hard-boiled egg or the passing of gas; they were often left to suffer the consequences for what felt like an hour afterward. Adjusting to such close proximity had been so difficult for Nella during her first few weeks at Wagner that she'd practiced breathing through her mouth even when it wasn't called for, like when she was deciding between granolas at the grocery store, or when she was having sex with her boyfriend, Owen. After about three months of failed self-training, she had broken down and purchased a lavender reed diffuser that had the words JUST BREATHE scrawled across its front in gold cursive letters. Its home was the far corner of her desk, where it sat just beneath the first edition of Kindred that Owen had given her shortly after they started dating. Nella eyed the gold foil letters and frowned. Could it have been the lavender diffuser she smelled? She inhaled again, craning her neck upward so that all she could see were the gray and white tiles that lined the ceiling. No. She'd been correct--that was cocoa butter, alright. And it wasn't just any cocoa butter. It was Brown Buttah, her favorite brand of hair grease. Nella looked around. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she stuck her hand into her thick black hair and pulled a piece of it as close to her nose as she could. She'd been proudly growing an afro over the last three years, but the strand still landed unsatisfyingly between her nose and her cheek. Nonetheless, it fell close enough to tell her that the Brown Buttah smell wasn't coming from her own hair. What she was smelling was fresh, a coat applied within the last hour or so, she guessed. This meant one of two things: One of her white colleagues had started using Brown Buttah. Or--more likely, since she was pretty sure none of them had accidentally stumbled into the natural hair care aisle-- there was another Black girl on the thirteenth floor. Nella's heart fluttered as she felt something she supposed resembled a hot flash. Had it finally happened? Had all of her campaigning for more diversity at Wagner finally paid off? Her thoughts were cut short by the loud, familiar cackle of Maisy Glendower, a squirrelly editor who appreciated modulation only when someone else was practicing it. Nella combed through the bray, listening hard for the hushed voice that had made Maisy laugh. Did it belong to a person of a darker hue? "Hay-girl- hay !" Startled, Nella looked up from her desk. But it was just Sophie standing above her, arms wrapped snugly around the side of her cubicle wall, eyes as wide and green as cucumbers. Nella groaned inwardly and clenched a fist beneath her desk. "Sophie," she mumbled, "hi." "Haaaay! What's up? How are you? How's your Tuesday going?" "I'm fine," Nella said, keeping her voice low in case any more audible clues floated her way. Sophie had tamed her eyes down a bit, thank goodness, but she was still staring at Nella as though there was something she wanted to say, but couldn't. This wasn't unusual for a Cubicle Floater like Sophie. As Cubicle Floaters went, she wasn't the worst. She didn't play favorites, which meant that your chances of seeing her more than once a week were slim. She was usually too busy hovering beside the cubicle of another assistant, her lazy smile reminding you of how good you didn't have it. By the luck of the draw, Sophie worked for Kimberly, an editor who'd been at Wagner Books for forty-one years. Kimberly had edited her first and last bestseller in 1986, but because this bestseller had not been just a bestseller--it had been adapted into a television show, a blockbuster film, a graphic novel, an adult film, a musical, a podcast, a miniseries, and another blockbuster film (in 4DX)--she was granted a pass on every non-bestseller that followed. Royalties were nothing to laugh at. Now nearing the end of her long career, Kimberly spent most of her time out of the office, and Nella suspected Sophie spent most of her time waiting for Kimberly to kindly retire already so that she could take her place. In a year, maybe less, it would dawn on Sophie that her boss wasn't going anywhere unless someone told her to, and no one ever would. But for now, Sophie hung on naively, just as every single one of her predecessors had. "Kim's still out," Sophie explained, even though Nella hadn't asked. "She sounded awful on the phone yesterday." "Which procedure is she getting done this time?" Sophie grabbed the taut bit of flesh between her chin and her clavicle and wiggled it around. "Ah. The crucial one." Sophie rolled her eyes. "Yep. She probably dropped more on that than we make here in a month. By the way, did you see...?" She cocked her head in the direction of Maisy's voice. "Did I see what?" "I think Maisy's got another potential candidate in." Sophie tossed her head again, this time adding in a suggestive, wiggling eyebrow. "And I don't know for certain, but she seems like she might be... you know." Nella tried to keep from grinning. "No, I don't," she said innocently. "Might be what?" Sophie lowered her voice. "I think she's... Black ." "You don't have to whisper the word 'Black,'?" Nella chided, even though she knew why Sophie did: Sounds, like smells, carried over cubicle walls. "Last time I checked, that was a socially acceptable word to use. I even use it sometimes." Sophie either ignored her joke or didn't feel comfortable laughing at it. She leaned over and whispered, "This is so great for you, right? Another Black girl at Wagner? You must be so excited!" Nella withheld eye contact, turned off by the girl's intensity. Yes, it would be great to have another Black girl working at Wagner, but she was hesitant to do a celebratory Electric Slide sequence just yet. She'd only believe that the higher-ups at Wagner had finally considered interviewing more diverse people when she saw it. Over the last two years, the only people who'd been interviewed or hired were Very Specific People who came from a Very Specific Box. Nella looked up from her desktop at Sophie, who happened to be one of these Very Specific People, and who was still chattering on. Over the course of just a few minutes, Sophie'd managed to talk herself onto a train of social awareness, and it was clear she had no intention of getting off anytime soon. "It reminds me of that anonymous op-ed BookCenter article I sent you last week--the one I swore you had to have written, because it just sounded so you-- about being Black in a white workplace. Remember that piece?" "Yeah, I do... and for the tenth time, I definitely didn't write that article," Nella reminded her, "even though I can obviously relate to a lot of the stuff that was in it." "Maybe Richard saw it and decided to do something about the lack of diversity here? I mean, that would be something. Remember how hard it was just to get people talking about diversity in one place? Those meetings were painful." To call them meetings seemed gratuitous, but Nella wasn't in the mood to go down that slippery slope. She had more important things to pursue. Like how to get rid of Sophie. Nella reached for her phone, let out a small groan, and said, "Whoa! Is it already ten fifteen? I actually need to make a very important phone call." "Aw. Darn." Sophie looked visibly disappointed. "Okay." "Sorry. But I'll report back!" Nella would not report back, but she'd learned that punctuating too-long interactions with this promise made parting much easier. Sophie smiled. "No prob. Later, girl!" she said, and off she went, as quickly as she'd come. Nella sighed and looked around aimlessly, her eyes skipping over the stack of papers she still hadn't delivered to her boss. In the grand scheme of things, the speed with which one could bring something from point A to point B should have zero effect upon whether that person deserved to be an assistant editor--especially since she'd worked for Vera, one of Wagner's most exalted editors, for two years now. But things between them lately had been, for the lack of a better word, weird . Their anniversary check-in a few days earlier had ended on a less-than-savory note. When Nella had asked for a promotion, Vera had listed at least a dozen surprise grievances she'd had with Nella's performance as her assistant, the last being the most unsettling of all: "I wish you'd put half the effort you put into those extracurricular diversity meetings into working on the core requirements." The word "extracurricular" had hit Nella hard and fast in the eye, like a piece of shrapnel. The company basketball team, the paper-making club-- those were extracurriculars. Her endeavors to develop a diversity committee were not. But she'd smiled and said thank you to her boss, who'd started working at Wagner years before Nella was even born, and tucked this piece of information into her back pocket for safekeeping. That was where she believed any dreams of letting her Black Girl Flag fly free would have to remain. But now the smell of Brown Buttah was hitting her nose again, and this time, there were telltale sounds: First, Maisy's practiced joke about Wagner's zany floor plan ("It makes about as much sense as the science in Back to the Future "); then, a laugh--deep, a bit husky around the edges, but still cocoa butter smooth at its core. Genuine, Nella could tell, as brief as it was. "... impossible. I swear, once you find where one person sits, you'll never find them a second time!" Maisy cackled again, her voice growing louder as she led her companion closer to her office. Realizing that they would have to walk by her own cube to get there, Nella looked up. Through the small crack in her partition, she spotted the swath of dark locs, the flash of a brown hand. There was another Black person on her floor. And given Maisy's spiel, this Black person was here for an interview. Which meant in the next few weeks, a Black person could quite possibly be sitting in the cube directly across from Nella. Breathing the same air. Helping her fend off all the Sophies of the Wagner office. Nella wanted to put a victorious fist in the air, 1968 Olympics-style. Instead, she made a mental note to text Malaika this latest Wagner update the earliest chance she got. "I hope your trip wasn't too long," Maisy was saying. "You took the train from Harlem, right?" "Actually, I'm living in Clinton Hill right now," the Black girl responded, "but I was born and raised on One Thirty-Fifth and ACP for a while." Nella sat up straighter. The girl's words, which sounded warmer and huskier than the laugh that had fallen easily from her mouth, evoked a sense of Harlem cool that Nella had always wished she possessed. She also noted--with reverence and not a little bit of envy--how confident the girl sounded, especially when Nella recalled her own anxiety-inducing interview with Vera. The footsteps were only inches away now. Nella realized she'd be able to get a good glimpse at the newcomer if she slid over to the far right of her cube, so she did exactly that, pretending to leaf through the manuscript Vera was waiting on while keeping one eye trained on the strip of hallway that led to Maisy's office. Almost instantly, Maisy and her prospective dreadlocked assistant made their way into her periphery, and the full picture came into view. The girl had a wide, symmetrical face, and two almond-colored eyes perfectly spaced between a Lena Horne nose and a generous forehead. Her skin was a shade or two darker than Nella's chestnut complexion, falling somewhere between hickory and umber. And her locs--every one as thick as a bubble-tea straw and longer than her arms--started out as a deep brown, then turned honey-blonde as they continued past her ears. She'd gathered a bunch and piled them on top of her head in a bun; the locs that hadn't made it hung loosely around the nape of her neck. And then there was the girl's pantsuit: a smart-looking ensemble composed of a single-button marigold jacket and a matching pair of oversized slacks that hit a couple of inches above the ankle. Below that, a pair of red patent leather high-heeled ankle boots that Nella would have broken her neck just trying to get into. It was all very Erykah-meets-Issa, another detail Nella was filing away for Malaika, when she heard Maisy ask the girl to explain what "ACP" meant. And it was a good thing she had, because Nella hadn't known, either. "Oh, sorry--that's Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard," the girl said, "but that's kind of a mouthful." "Oh! Of course. A mouthful indeed. Harlem is such a great neighborhood. Its history is just so rich. Wagner held an event at the Schomburg earlier this year--February I think it was--for one of our authors. It was very well received." Nella fought back a snort. Maisy hadn't attended this aforementioned event; what's more, Nella was willing to bet her middle name that the Museum of Natural History was as far north as Maisy had ever traveled in Manhattan. Maisy was a kind enough woman--she made bathroom small talk as well as the next senior-level employee--but she was fairly limited in her sense of what "the city" entailed. Just the mention of Williamsburg, despite its Apple Store, Whole Foods, and devastating selection of designer boutiques, caused Maisy to recoil as though someone had just asked to see the inside of her vagina. Surely this dreadlocked girl could sense that Maisy had no true sense of Harlem's "culture." Nella wished she could see the look on the Black girl's face, but they'd already started to enter Maisy's office, so she had to settle for a chuckle in its place. It was subtle, but in the milliseconds that passed before Maisy shut her door, Nella was able to detect amusement at the end of that chuckle--an exasperated kind of amusement that asked, without asking, You don't spend time with Black people often, do you? Nella crossed her fingers. The girl probably didn't need it, but she wished her luck, anyway. Excerpted from The Other Black Girl: A Novel by Zakiya Dalila Harris All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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