A mash-up, pleasure of the senses

THE publicity materials for Zakiya Dalila Harris’s debut novel, The Other Black Girl, describe the book as a literary mash-up of The Devil Wears Prada and Get Out.

That sets the bar high with the promise of a cultural landmark – a novel that’s timely, hilarious, witty, mildly terrifying, emotionally textured and conversant on the social and political issues that black women face in the world and the workplace.

Is the novel worth the hype? Yes. It should be at the top of your winter reading list.

The story opens in the summer of 2018. Nella Rogers (see: celebrated Harlem Renaissance author, Nella Larsen) is in the second year of her job as an editorial assistant at Wagner Books.

A University of Virginia graduate and the daughter of a college dean, Nella is privileged but still disadvantaged relative to her wealthier white peers. Nella is hungry for a promotion and wonders if her professional ascent is halted by her race, her campaign for a more diverse workplace or something else altogether.

Nella relies on two sounding boards – her best friend, Malaika, another 20-something black girl, and her white boyfriend, Owen. The book earns its title from a new hire who disrupts Nella’s status as Wagner’s proverbial fly in the buttermilk.

Nella is immediately enraptured and perplexed by Wagner’s newest editorial assistant, Hazel-May McCall.

They bond over college-educated black girl things – literary tastes, a Zora Neale Hurston mug.

But Hazel swiftly eclipses Nella, joining forces with the company’s editor-in-chief, Richard Wagner, and hogging the mic at a fall marketing meeting. Soon after Hazel’s start date, Nella finds a mysterious note on her desk: “LEAVE WAGNER NOW.”

Is Hazel the culprit? Or are there darker forces at work? An engaging sub-plot revolves around a Wagner book that hit the best-seller list in 1983 and the soured friendship between its author, Diana Gordon, and its editor, her childhood friend, Kendra Rae Phillips. Kendra flames out spectacularly after calling out, on TV, the racism of the publishing industry and America in general. Kendra’s subsequent disappearance and unrealised career ambitions haunt both Nella and this text.

Nella and Kendra’s story lines intersect in surprising ways as the novel transitions into a riveting thriller revolving around a covert brainwashing effort and an underground resistance movement.

One of the pleasures of The Other Black Girl is its unapologetic appeal to black female readers.

Naomi Jackson is the author of The Star Side of Bird Hill and an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University at Newark.