Riot Baby

Tochi Onyebuchi
Completed 2/18/2022, Reviewed 2/18/2022
4 stars

This novella took me several days to finish.  It was a little difficult to follow.  Sometimes it felt stream of consciousness.  Sometimes it jumped timelines.  But almost all the time, the language used was powerful and provocative, just not cohesive.  It’s about a baby born on the day of the L.A. riots over the Rodney King beating and the problems growing up black in America.  It has a fantasy twist, though, which made it that much more intense.  It’s about being angry and having hope.  This book was nominated for a slew of awards, wining the 2021 World Fantasy Award for Novella.

The book begins with Ella, a black child of a single pregnant mother.  She has a gift of seeing the future of the people around her.  As she grows, her gift expands, including teleportation, psychokinetics, and getting into people’s minds making them see things.  Her mother bears a son, Kevin, or Kev.  She makes him help her keep Ella’s use of her powers under control.  But then Ella’s anger toward her mother grows and she eventually leaves home.  Soon after, Kev goes to jail where he gets beaten and becomes violent himself.  During his incarceration and after he has visits with Ella, both physical and through her mind, who tries to show him where he came from and where there might be hope.

Onyebuchi says in his acknowledgements that this book began as a “swirl of disembodied phrases and feelings and half-characters”.  Reading it still felt that way at times, particularly the ending.  I became disoriented in the last few pages, and when the book ended, I felt like I was left in a daze, rather than at a conclusion.  I think it had to do with Ella’s powers.  When she starts to make Kev see things, it becomes difficult to follow.  They jump back and forth in time and place.  Kev doesn’t always know what he’s seeing, and he’s the narrator of most of the book.  

However, reading the book was quite an experience.  It is full of anger and frustration at growing up black in America.  As a reader, you really feel those emotions.  The time in prison is particularly difficult reading, realizing Kev has gone from being college-bound to a violent, hardened person.  There’s a great short quote by an older, formerly incarcerated man named Calvin.  He tells Kev, “Hurt people hurt people”.  Simple but powerful.  

The character of Kev is fleshed-out pretty well.  Ella’s not so much.  We have regular interactions with her, but it seems it’s more to describe her powers and have her engage them with Kev.  I felt like I didn’t really know Ella.  She was more of a process or function rather than a person.  This was unfortunate because Kev was so rich.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  Despite its flaws, it is intense.  It forces you to look at what it is like to grow up black in America.  You can’t help getting angry as the characters do.  But there is hope for freedom from all the crap.  This book is not easy to read, because of form and content.  It challenges the reader to pay attention and make decisions.  And although I got lost in the form at the end, I didn’t miss the power of the message.