Imagine, if you will, a new America.
A country where people are happy, tolerant, fulfilled and striving for a better tomorrow. A country where people no longer fear being persecuted, marginalised, or being killed “accidentally” by the police.
Imagine, if you will, a new America — where every single white person has committed suicide, leaving people of colour to remake the country into one of their choosing.
Yup, pretty provocative stuff …
The story (loosely) follows the new beginnings of Charlie Brunton — released from prison after serving twenty years after being falsely accused of rape, into a United States where (almost) every white person has walked into the nearest body of water and drowned.
Charlie is working as an engineering lecturer at Howard University, when he gets a phone call from Sidney, the daughter he didn’t know existed.
Sidney needs his help: she wants to head south to Alabama — where she’ll find the last enclave of white people left in the country.
Sky Full of Elephants definitely falls into that strange category of “speculative literary fiction”; the story is beautifully told, with a huge range of deeply realised characters and vivid settings, which is pretty impressive.
Even more impressive is that the author didn’t use the book to preach for a better, whites-free world. He just told the story: people of colour trying to live their best, somewhat bewildered lives.
By the end of the book, we do actually find out what happened to the country, but we’re kind of left hanging as where the people go next.