My Monticello Summary
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

My Monticello Overview

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is a fiction collection of five short stories and a titular novella, set primarily in the state of Virginia, that explores societal problems surrounding race, class, and power, as well as personal responses to them. In expressive narration, the author’s Black characters unveil the choices they have made in order to navigate the feelings of alienation they experience in America, sometimes within imagined or real apocalyptic conditions. Through these scenarios, Johnson explores themes of community, belonging, force and coercion, and ownership.