Witness by Jamel Brinkley
What's It About?
Ten stories set in New York City that depict the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action.The best stories are those that tap into what it intrinsically means to be human. By doing so, we’re connected not only with the characters within said stories but also with our fellow readers experiencing their journeys. In his second collection, Witness (FSG), Jamel Brinkley captures this phenomenon across ten narratives exploring taking action and our innate desire to be seen alongside the constant struggle to see others.
Balancing individuality and motif across a collection of short stories is often a difficult task to navigate but one that Brinkley manages with a deft hand. The setting of contemporary New York City grounds Witness in a place that we all know or can imagine; however, rather than using the city as a crutch, the stories focus on the people within while the city stands firm in the background. In selecting a setting that is readily conjured, Brinkley offers an opportunity for further connection with his characters through our shared understanding of their surroundings. Additionally, the stories retain their individuality by connecting the characters with their location in the city—a group of teens living in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Bed-Stuy as they themselves confront the coming transition out of high school; a little girl in Crown Heights noticing how the unusual weather is impacting her familial traditions as her family barrels towards a massive change; a mother living in a cramped apartment near Prospect Park who is struggling to understand her daughter. This care with setting coupled with the strength of Brinkley’s characters allows each of these narratives to stand alone on their own merit while contributing to the larger theme collectively.
A PRESSING AND NECESSARY MESSAGE
While exploring the nuances around the desire to be seen and our ability to see others, Brinkley raises some fascinating questions and confronts some uncomfortable truths. In the very first story, “Blessed Deliverance,” we’re asked to reckon with how a community sees those within their own community against the gaze of an outsider. In the eponymous “Witness,” we see how Black women are continually failed by the American healthcare system. In “Bartow Station,” we’re shown a man who doesn’t feel as though he deserves to be seen. Furthermore, alongside the depth of thought in each story, Brinkley delivers gripping narratives at each turn. In some collections it is difficult to fall into a new rhythm when starting the next story but with Witness, it’s natural as each narrative grips on the first page. Sometimes it’s the very first sentence, such as in “Bystander,” where we’re greeted with, “Anita knew better than to confess.” At other times it’s the sheer draw of the event, like the dance party outside of the museum in “The Let-Out.” Finally, Brinkley masterfully pulls on our hearts with the kind-yet-tragic story relayed in “Sahar,” the all too familiar stranglehold of grief in “Comfort,” and the chilling oppression of guilt in “Bartow Station.”
These ten stories come together to share a pressing and necessary message yet manage to stand alone enough to be distinct. There is a person and a narrative for everyone hidden among these tales penned by Jamel Brinkley—you’ll just have to read to see them and, in the process, learn a bit more about what it means to see and be seen.
About the author:
Jamel Brinkley is the author of Witness: Stories (2023), out now from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US)/4th Estate (UK), and A Lucky Man: Stories (2018, Graywolf Press), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Story Prize, the John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and winner of a PEN Oakland Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His writing has appeared in A Public Space, Ploughshares, Zoetrope: All-Story, The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, The Yale Review, Guernica, The Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, Glimmer Train, The Believer, and Tin House, and has been anthologized twice in The Best American Short Stories. His work has also received support from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Lannan Foundation. He was a Carol Houck Smith Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and has received an O. Henry Award and the Rome Prize. Raised in Brooklyn and the Bronx, he teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
