'Stories From the Tenants Downstairs' by Sidik Fofana
'I don't get a joy out of seeing you get washed away. Not when that same wave's coming for me, too.'—Review #226
New York City is a tough and unforgiving place to live. Despite all the wonderful things the city has to offer—from great restaurants, to amazing cultural institutions, to eclectic people—it seems there’s always a force grinding you down or trying to push you out. That force is real estate, which constantly drives up the cost of living. One slip up, one job lost, one paycheck missed, and you could be outta here. Nowhere does this pressure seem more acute than in neighborhoods undergoing gentrification, such as Harlem, the setting for Sidik Fofana’s ‘Stories From the Tenants Downstairs,’ a collection of interconnected fictional short stories set during Bloomberg’s mayoral era about the residents of an apartment building called Banneker Terrace.
Here’s the cover:
Each chapter features a different resident. Among them is Mimi, a single mother who works in a diner and does hair, and dreams of a better life in Westchester. She struggles with making rent, care for her developmentally disabled son and a taste for designer accessories. There’s also Swan, the father of Mimi’s child, who, after welcoming home an incarcerated friend, helps him rob a Chinese food deliveryman. There’s Verona Dallas, Swan’s mother, who works two jobs, one at Sojourner Truth Middle School (across from the apartment building) where students and teachers clash. There’s Darius, who helps with Mimi’s hair business, but is so pressed for money he contemplates extreme measures to get it. There’s Mr. Murray, a chess-playing elder who’s displaced from his favorite sitting spot by a new upscale restaurant. And there’s Najee, one of the middle school students who’s coping with tragedy and also is one of the “It’s Showtime!” dancers New Yorkers see all the time on the subway:
Looming over the residents is the fact that their building has new owners keen to oust tenants in arrears and flip their apartments. A building ‘Committee of Concern’ has formed to help residents get their payments and paperwork in order, to keep them informed about management and to connect them to lawyers. The group has had mixed success in getting the attention of all at-risk residents, but they persist because they fear:
The first chapter, the one about Mimi, which you’ll read a bit of below, is written from the second person point of view, where the text refers to ‘you’ doing Mimi’s actions. This isn’t my favorite narrative perspective, but it puts the reader directly into the flow of Mimi’s life. Her struggles became my struggles; her neighbors mine. The subsequent chapters are written in the voice of their protagonists, using their vernacular. There are no quotation marks, and the spellings and punctuation are tricky. This can be jarring at first (I struggled with it), but once you settle in, the characters come into sharp focus. It’s as if Fofana is sketching their portraits using their own words, like:
I’ve seen it written often on social media that you should give up on a book right away if it doesn’t immediately resonate with you. This thought occurred to me as I started ‘Stories From the Tenants Downstairs,’ because I struggled early on with the narrative’s voice and perspective. But I’m really glad I continued with it. The book is full of fascinating characters, and I became invested in their stories. I’ll be thinking about Mimi and her various tactics for making rent—from throwing a party and charging admission to trying to pull off some sort of diaper-sale scheme—for a while. I’ll also be thinking about Mr. Murray, whose story includes residents rallying against the restaurant and offers sharp commentary on virtue signaling and performative justice. Fofana—a New York City public school teacher—has written an important book about the importance of community (warts and all), and I encourage you to check it out.
How it begins:
days left: 10 … money you got: $0 … money you need: $350
The slip is gonna come in the mail like it do every month, with the Lysol and the Save the Children envelope lookin regular as hell. It’s gonna have your name, Michelle A. Sutton, on it. And it’s gonna say balance. And it’s gonna say when the balance due: first of the month.
Read the slip to yourself.
Scream, Shit, then stub your toe on the kitchen table.
The man in 14C gonna hit the wall.
Hit the wall back.
Who they thanked:
Fofana has almost three pages of acknowledgements full of family, friends and fellow writers. But the line that stuck with me is where he thanks ‘Mr. Randall for making ninth-grade English so fun.’ A high school English teacher had a strong influence in my career as a writer and editor, so Fofana’s line brought back a fond memory and made me smile.
My rating:
‘Stories From the Tenants Downstairs’ by Sidik Fofana was published by Scribner in 2022 and 2023. 207 pages. $15.81 at Bookshop.org.
Recent pickups:
‘Pedro Páramo’ by Juan Rulfo (Lofty Pigeon Books)
‘Pisti, 80 Rue de Belleville’ by Estelle Hoy (Booklink, Terminal E, Tampa International Airport)
‘A Lesson Before Dying’ by Ernest J. Gaines (Bookoff)
Books on GIF does not solicit review copies. We feature books we purchase at independent bookstores around New York City and on our travels, or were borrowed electronically from the Brooklyn Public Library.
What’s next:
Before you go:
ICYMI: Review #225
Read this: ‘Never Let Go’ by J. Brian Charles (who was in the same English class I mentioned above) in Truly Adventurous is a deeply reported and fascinating story about Grant Williams, a man whose dreams of a music career with his friend in Wu-Tang Clan were cut short by a wrongful murder conviction. The story is riveting, so much so I was reading it on the subway and almost missed my stop!
Read this, too: Womb House Books has been my online obsession for years, and I was excited to see it get written up in Publishers Weekly: ‘How Womb House Became the Internet’s Favorite “Women-Driven” Bookstore’. Owner Jessica lists new second-hand books for sale on Etsy every day, usually at 9 p.m. Eastern time. She also has merch, like this rad Iris Murdoch hat:
View this: Kaia Gerber, the model and daughter of Cindy Crawford, has launched a new book club called Library Science. So far, it’s pretty good! I’m interested to see where it goes.
Thanks for the shoutout! Our review of ‘Dust Tracks on a Road’ was featured in two newsletters: Spark and in Spark Zen.
If you enjoyed this review:
Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to Donna for editing this newsletter!
Until next time,
MPV
This is one of those books I appreciated even if I didn’t enjoy the reading experience. I found it super stressful but that was the point.
Thoughtful Review. I read this back in October and liked the connected short stories all set in one place. I, too, found some harder to follow than others, but I felt it was well written and immersive. I will definitely look into his next book. I heard the author on The BookCase podcast (with Kate and Charlie Gibson from GMA) and it made me want to read the book. He was so interesting.