BEYOND THE BLACK SPECTACLES IS THE QUILTING OF STARS

In her latest novelette, Clovis guides readers through Black stories.

This second-person narrative places “You,” the reader, in Princeton University’s Firestone Library. You’re there to uncover and reveal Black stories before the librarian “captures” them for herself. The key to this mission is in her spectacles, which you’ll simply need to swipe from her face. Their lenses “can warp time and magnify distant galaxies of thought and experience.” They take you to a special world where language transforms into a visualization of ideas in a space called “the miracle of reading.” Stories connect the past, present, and future. For example, in 2021, Clovis sits in Einstein’s old Princeton classroom, where university housecleaner Carnethia, a Black woman, once studied Einstein’s formulas on boards and spoke to him about his lectures. The author links Black stories to such concepts as space-time and synchronicity, recurring themes in her work. These unique voices, passed from generation to generation, create a “circular field of dream time” where the tales are as infinite as the universe. Like Clovis’ preceding novelette, The Kingfisher(2021), this book is allegorical. Rather than focus on Black stories’ specific content, she centers on the importance of keeping them alive. Mutual understanding, too, plays a significant role; the spectacles the reader wears help Clovis, “the scribe,” see herself in her audience. Despite a largely conceptual story, Clovis weaves in tangible elements, equating heavy breath with a “200-pound gorilla” on the reader’s chest and offering a delightfully literal view of string theory. Moreover, her poetic passages brighten every page: “The synchronicity of ripples of gravitational waves that stretch and squeeze space like an accordion of music pulsating behind the spectacles of magnified time encountering planets, stars, and black holes in opposition.” While this book may end, Clovis assures readers that stories of people’s lives never do.

A short, expressive lesson on preserving and safeguarding Black history.