The City We Became

Here's the basic premise: An epic battle is forming between a newly “born” New York City and an entity from another dimension in this novel. As a part of the birth process, the city of New York is suddenly personified by five people who represent, or embody, each of its five boroughs, and a mysterious sixth who is supposed to bring them all together. The city of Sao Paulo (the city's avatar, or personification, that is) is on the scene to manage the struggle and help New York come through its birth unscathed.

In this first volume of a planned trilogy, the people who personify the five boroughs of New York have the fact thrust upon them. It just happens while they're going about their business doing other things, so they have to adjust and figure out what it means and how they should proceed. Much of this book is about the process of discovery and banding together of these New York super-heroes. The characters are distinct from each other and meant to be representative of the boroughs they personify: Manhattan, a young, charming guy of uncertain heritage who comes to the city to start grad school. Brooklyn, a black city councilwoman with a past as a rapper, now a single mother to a 14 year old daughter. Bronx, a Native woman in her 60's who runs an arts foundation in her neighborhood, is a Lesbian, and deeply connected to the Native past of the land New York occupies. Queens is an immigrant from India, living with relatives, working a job while she also goes to grad school. Staten Island is the Irish American daughter of a domineering cop and a homemaker, brought up to be suspicious of the city and of foreigners. Some of these characters are more fully developed than others. I found Queens to be pretty thin, for example.

The enemy in this book is pretty creepy, and there are plenty of enemy encounters, even though the team of superheroes isn't fully assembled yet. There is a nod to (and critique of) H.P. Lovecraft, and the evil that the enemy brings is entangled with white supremacy, misogyny, and anti-semitism.

Overall, this was an enjoyable book that was especially timely to read during a global pandemic and in the midst of a struggle for justice for people of color in my home city and my country. I've never read anything by N. K. Jemisin before, but I will be putting her other books on my reading list post haste, and watching for the second volume of this series.