16 April 2021 Genre Fiction: Riot Baby

TORDA'S SUMMER 2021 TEACHING

16 April 2021 Genre Fiction: Riot Baby

4/16/2021

I want to circle back to our reading of Interior Chinatown. That's a text we talked about as literary fiction, and I know that folks struggled with this idea of what literary fiction was at the time. So this week we are reading an example of something that explicitly calls itself genre fiction. And yet, I don't know that we can sort of explicitly say that this is not literary fiction.

This is the author's first "adult novel"--rather than YA, which is what he is known as. I think you can see a lot of YA influences in the text. This novel has gotten a lot of great reviews, which is one of the ways that a text makes that leap from genre fiction to literary fiction--fake as that seems.

So our prompt for today is a simple one: in what ways does this text seem to adhere to genre conventions? And what are those conventions and where do you see them in this novel? On the other hand, in what ways does this feel like literary fiction--I know, I know, you aren't sure what that means, but I think you have a better idea than you did--so what might you say could make this feel like literary fiction?

Post 300 words in response to the prompt. Respond to at least one of your colleagues--try not to say "oh yeah I totally agree."

16 Comments

CJ Hall

4/16/2021 11:28:05 am

Riot Baby adheres to genre fiction in the sense of breaking the “rules” of time, space and “normal” human abilities. Time is not linear: Ella travels back to post-emancipation south, forward to see the futures of the people around her, and also to other locations within the present. It isn’t that the characters are re-experiencing memories of things they have done, they are living as observers in other people’s memories. They are described as ghosts many times. The astral projection in current time periods allows Kevin to transcend his painful time in Riker’s. Ella and Kevin’s abilities are extra-sensory and point to science fiction evolution or fantasy genre as well. As far as a different world, the novel is based in LA around the Rodney King beating, dismissal of the LEO’s and the subsequent riots; it then jumps forward a decade and is located in New York; the third section takes place in prison and Kev begins to discover his gift which is unclear as to time and location… him being in the Rodeo/Angola and present in the women’s correctional section/chapel for the wedding. I think that this could be literary fiction if he spent some more time with certain scenes and added further description. Like the quick reference to the “downloading” of information into the guards, or the roomba… that part wasn’t clear enough and would have benefitted from more context and back story. At times, the story is too mysterious, too hazy for the reader to do more than peer through the mist of the siblings' experiences. If Onyebuchi spent more time on the repercussions of the gifts and the ripples that were made or experienced in the outer society or added Mama’s point of view, this may have had more for the reader to explore and contained more complex issues to think about. In that way, the simplicity of narration felt more like YA. I wanted another 200 more pages to this, more explanation and context and things to chew on… maybe then it would cross over more for me.

Rebecca Monestime

4/17/2021 12:39:29 pm

Hi CJ,
Yes I agree, I feel like it is a story where readers are able to go back and forth from the present, past, and future all in one time thanks to the supernatural abilities of the characters. They all relate to the black experience in a way that sci-fi and the supernatural are the main plot points. She is even able to see the riots back in the 60s and the riots happening in the 2010s (135). At that point it was the 90s so this shows that traveling back and forth in time to see the life that could have been or what it will be which is pretty apocalyptic. A big black cultural aspect of the story is religion. It seems kind of contradictory that Ella and her family are Christians yet her having this ability to gaze into the future is the opposite of what Christians do. Ella's powers are pretty important in the story as we've seen numerous times throughout the story.

4/21/2021 03:17:42 pm

Yes! To all this, especially when they went back to a time of share cropping and hiding from those who would potentially lynch them. The supernatural and Christian conflict is another thing I would have liked to see more fully developed!!

Michael Wood

4/16/2021 11:59:57 am

I find that Riot Baby takes a lot of creative liberties with its material as it is commonly used to emphasize the fury of the characters in the face on injustice. The way this this adheres to the conventions of literary genre in fiction is that it evokes a new layer of empathy from the reader by fully throwing its content right in your face. The characters and the setting are shown in a grim and bleakly confrontational way whereas most people who could have been there would never recognize the grim nature of what happens. This holds true during the pivotal scene when we see how prisons are poorly kept and how the adaptation becomes a daily struggle. As Kev makes his way through New Orleans during the riots, it becomes apparent that he is the protagonist but not the hero. He makes poor choices due to the environment he chooses to adapt to and I think that a lot of readers can attach themselves to that idea. While not every character needs to be likable, I firmly agree that they are interesting in their own right. In the face of hatred due to his skin color, Kev quickly realizes that he cannot fight and falls in with these gangs in a way to find his own people. While this does lead to his downfall, I find that the reader is mostly supposed to be on his side throughout the story while often questioning his ethics.

Maddie Staples

4/23/2021 07:10:14 am

Michael,
I agree that it was effective to translate the anger of black people living under a white supremacist system into Ella's powers. I think the commentary that that aspect communicated was revelatory, especially for me as a white person. There were several references to the fact that Ella could destroy the whole system with a thought, could have completely obliterated the prison and the police state and every white supremacist actor in their vicinity. However, we get the impression that it is the same system that stops her from doing so. Something I got from this novel is the way that even absolute power in black people is wholly stifled by white supremacy. I think if Onyebuchi had really fleshed out this idea, that would have brought the novel more securely into the realm of literary fiction.

Matt McGuirk

4/16/2021 12:10:44 pm

I really do think this book sits on the edge of genre fiction and literary fiction. In literary fiction, I feel like there’s always a larger message being communicated to us — something beyond the story we are following. I think it was evident in Interior Chinatown and I really feel it in Riot Baby, too, particularly at the end when Ella is showing Kev that vision and how she tells him it will never end and he will never be free. To me, that was what the author was getting at the entire time.

In terms of genre fiction, I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’m going to answer this question very well. I think this book follows that mold because it’s following the story of two characters and we’re getting actual scenes, exposition, dialogue, and setting. This is a contrast to Interior Chinatown, which was written in a screenplay for the most part and had a satirical nature to it. Riot Baby is confusing at times; I didn’t always know where we were and who we were following because it goes from third person following Ella and Kev to first person from Kev’s perspective, but it was fine once I got the hang of it. I also think the supernatural aspect of this makes it genre fiction. Literary fiction has a theme attached to it — I don’t think you would necessarily see a character with Ella’s abilities in a work like that. That’s just me, though. The time travel, if you’ll call it that, works better in genre fiction. And, this is kind of stating the obvious, but genre fiction is called that for a reason. Riot Baby is almost in a supernatural genre. Yeah, there is clearly a greater theme to this novel — a facet of literary fiction — but it has the qualities of genre fiction. I don’t think a text like Interior Chinatown has any qualities of genre fiction.

Kate Bazarsky

4/20/2021 05:38:33 am

Hey Matt, I felt the same way following the story, it got confusing and hard to understand at times. However, I think it could fit in literary fiction even with its time travel/fantasy elements only because of the story that is written into it. I think that because the author wrote such a heart wrenching story outside of the fantasy aspect, we don't put it at the forefront.

Paige Couture

4/16/2021 12:37:32 pm

The ways that this text feels like a literary novel is when Ella picks up on negative energy or tunes into her psychic ability. For Riot Baby, I see Ella using her psychic abilities before something bad happens. Ella grows up with an awareness that she has a psychic ability. Whenever something happens, Ella always states: “Something bad is gonna happen!” (45). Ella feels something bad is going to happen after a vision that she had gotten of a fire. In this vision, Ella notices people in public chanting or throwing bricks. In this vision, there are many people who were getting arrested. What’s interesting about these visions is that Ella can feel her hand burning. This usually a sign of her being empathic, which means that she can feel other peoples emotions. However, later on in the story, we learn that Ella might not even be real: “Ella takes a staep closer, and I know she means to hug me, but I put an arm out to stop her. ‘You ain’t gotta do that. You’re a ghost too’” (112). This is a sign that Ella has really strong intuition and can pick up negative energy. Throughout the story, Ella learns how to live with this ability. At the neighbor’s house, a shooting happens. Ella notices that Kev is standing outside while the shooting is happening. He ends up getting seven bullets shot into him, then mysteriously disappears. Kev states to Ella: “I don’t want no ghost coming to see me,’ Kev had said without moving his mouth, ‘If I see you, I wanna see you for real” (61). Not only does Ella feel negativity, but there is also the possibility that she can see spirits. When Kev become incarcerated, Ella starts to learn how to control her abilities. The characters in the stories use language that is known as slang: “Ayo, whatup slime” (47). This is known for another way to state to a friend: “Hi, what’s up?” There is also explicit language that is mentioned throughout the story: “suck my dick!” (47). This is used to demonstrate anger throughout the characters. Kev says this to a man who tries to open the commuters back door closed.
Towards the end of the story, Ella shows Kev the apocalypse that she had predicted: “Fire and blood screaming and singing. Shattered chunks of marble littering park grounds. Shattered chunks of marble littering park grounds. Monuments to the confederates pulverized into dust. Police stations turned into husks, watch posts unnamed and creaking with rust” (172). Ella admits to Kev that she has the ability to predict the future. The vision of the world falling apart is a possibility of what will happen to the world when it ends. Kev mentions that the end of the world is going to set us free. Here, I believe Kev means that there is no way for us to fight back or overcome an apocalypse. If that’s the world does not end in fire or ice, instead ends in an apocalypse, we will become free souls. Everyone will not have to be afraid of thinking about ways life will end.
Riot Baby feels like it relates to literary fiction by focusing more on character development without really any “plot”... I believe that this novel is considered literary fiction because we are brought into the lives of two characters: Kev and Ella. Both characters back up each other in a way. Ella struggles with a psychic ability while Kev tries to help her deal with her ability and use it more to help others.

Maddie Staples

4/16/2021 12:48:00 pm

I do think that this novel dances on the line between literary fiction and genre fiction. Elements of magic or magical realism do not necessarily exclude a work from being literary--even Interior Chinatown was not what I would call realistic fiction. Onyebuchi's reliance on certain tropes of fantasy/sci-fi and dystopian are what keep this in the realm of genre fiction. Certain genre conventions--the magical girl in a hostile world, the fictional dystopian world that Kev is released into, the discovery of his own latent powers--fuel the novel. We as readers are expected to digest a lot of the conventions of the world at face value and gradually grow to understand how and why things are the way they are. Ella's powers manifest out of nowhere and progress at a very rapid rate, Kev is released on parole into a dystopic world patrolled by profiling police algorithms. These are aspects of genre fiction that we should expect to deal with as we go into the novel.
What I think brings Riot Baby to the brink of literary fiction are the themes that undergird the genre conventions. The dystopian world is an extention of the police state that we already live in, Ella's magic was a manifestation of centuries of African American heritage and resilience. The novel broached real issues within the confines of the genre. However, I agree with CJ that there was not nearly enough time or detail spent developing the story. I wanted to understand Ella and Kev's powers. I wanted a more in-depth look at the robotic police state that had developed while Kev was in prison. The last section of the novel felt very rushed to me, and, as CJ says, I think it got very hazy and hard to follow. For example, Kev is assigned a job as a mechanic, which we suddenly find out is for advanced human prostheses rather than cars (144), THEN we are given the off-handed information that these prosthetics are being used to strengthen the police force (170). I don't feel that this strange new world was given enough attention or detail for me to feel like I fully understand it, nor do I feel like we know enough about Ella at all to really get the scope or use of her powers. Honestly, I do feel that Onyebuchi may have been trying to straddle the line between genre and literary, and as a result both feel slightly underdeveloped.
Additionally, what I think prevents the novel from becoming literary fiction is that I don't necessarily get what the "point" was. In Interior Chinatown, the message at the end was very explicit that Asian-American stereotypes are harmful and oppressive, limiting the ability of individuals or the community as a whole to thrive in this nation. However, while Riot Baby explores several issues--racism, profiling, overpolicing, the prison industrial complex--Onyebuchi does not necessarily make a "point" about how to address these issues. At least, he does not offer a solution based in reality. Magically razing America and establishing a new order is not feasible or translatable into real action. It seems to me a hallmark of genre fiction that this sudden and magical ending would be given to the story, rather than drawing a more "literary" conclusion that has a real takeaway for the reader.

4/21/2021 03:27:03 pm

As usual, you are far more articulate voicing my thoughts than I am, haha!! The real life struggles of living a black existence are peppered into the genre scenes. They support the dynamics of the characters and their motivations. The themes of an overly powerful police state, carceral and parole realities for black and brown people, and racial inequities in treating black women during pregnancy, labor and delivery deliver literary fiction ideals. But as I said in my post: this needed much more work to fully cross over to both adult and literary fiction. Throwing in a few F-bombs and violence does not make this adult fiction.

Rebecca Monestime

4/17/2021 12:23:18 pm

In Riot Baby, there are lots of literary fiction such as Ella's ability to predict the future and see things that will happen whether it is good or bad. She is able to feel the negative energies of people and the impact it will have on them. She can see ghosts and the past. She always mention her psychic abilities to an adult such as her grandma, when she says "Grandma, something bad is going to happen" (22) As a matter of fact, I think that Ella believes in superstitions as well such as "Ella skips over the cracks where weeds poke through, more of grandma's Werther's in her pocket" (16). which is similar to not stepping on cracks in order not to break your mother's back. Since she is living in a time where the LA riots were at its worst, Ella wants to escape. She hates all the violence and killings that occur and she says it multiple times throughout the story.
Ella seems to know she was born with this supernatural ability but we can also see that she struggled to use and control it at the beginning but as time went on she eventually learned how to live with is properly. The same goes with Kev as well. In this story, it uses magic, the super-natural, and sci-fi to tell the story of life as an African-American child, teen, or adult during the riots and experiencing racism first-hand by seeing cops arrest and kill young black men just for being black. In a way, her psychic powers could be used in a way to help predict terrible events in the future and could be used to stop it but in the end it didn't. Ella predicted the "apocalypse in the South". She saw "cities, whole cities rising into the sky. So much death, but there's so much joy in it "(172) and she showed her abilities off to Kev.
For this story in terms of genre conventions, it is about the black experience during the LA riots therefore, it will be done in the perspective of black people. The daily struggles black people go through with racism and police brutality but Onyebuchi took creative liberty and was able to take the reader from the real world into the magic world and vice versa.

Derek Krysko

4/18/2021 10:41:37 am

I think that one could argue “Riot Baby” satisfies the requirements to be considered both genre fiction and literary fiction. It certainly abides by genre standards when it inserts science fiction elements into the story, as these elements are integral to the overall plot and are responsible for the progression of the narrative. Ella’s telekinetic powers directly influence the way the story is read, and also influences how Kev is perceived by the reader. She uses her powers to offer cruel glimpses of freedom to Kev and to set him on a path to becoming a revolutionary. The involvement of such a significant sci-fi device helps the story maintain genre standards, because generally a science fiction relies heavily on supernatural or unrealistic abilities to move the story forward. Ella’s powers run the gambit on classic sci-fi abilities, with things like telekinesis, time travel, and the ability to create astral projections. It is genre fiction in that the main action of the story is influenced by otherworldly powers and abilities, and the story only moves forward because these elements exist.

“Riot Baby” could be considered literary fiction as well because of its reliance on character building, and its very human narrative. If we compare this story to “Interior Chinatown,” we can see that both stories emphasize character over plot, and that the struggles of the individual are what we are supposed to concern ourselves with. While “Riot Baby” does feature somewhat intricate plot points, it is ultimately a story about a very human issue, and we are meant to connect with the emotions of Kev and Ella. The sci-fi elements are essentially just a vehicle for Onyebuchi to give insight into a modern problem, and to discuss racism and oppression in a way that may be more approachable for audiences. We are meant to understand the struggle of being Black in America, and how Kev is punished simply for existing as a Black man. It expresses a desire for long-overdue freedom, a sentiment that Black people all over the world likely share. Discussing a universal truth such as this, one that is so deeply rooted in the human experience, better categorizes this story as literary fiction. I think that in the end, the story has elements of both genre and literary fiction. It uses the sci-fi genre as a framework to tell a deeper, more emotionally complex tale about oppression and injustice.

Kate Bazarsky

4/20/2021 05:34:33 am

The use of time is the most important element in "Riot Baby" because it brings in a lot of historical realism. I would consider the book literary fiction because it does not fit in genre fiction. There is a dystopian, fantasy and real world the author created. It does not fit in one place but it does tell an important story through time.
One thing I thought was really interesting while reading was the way the author created the feeling of racism throughout the story; we have scenes from LA riots, Rodney King, the Watts Riots and the shooting of Sean Bell all the while having a dystopian future world. It felt like the author used the historical flashbacks and the fantasy world to intertwine the scenarios.
I think the point of literary fiction goes back to a question that all writers ask themselves after they write, “So what?”--why should people care? Why should they choose to read your book? In “Interior Chinatown”, the character had woven himself into so many different personas, we were invested in trying to follow him and understand him. In “Interior Chinatown”, it took a lot longer to understand the whole story for me. In “Riot Baby” we are invested because we (1) want to understand what is going on between Ella and Kev and (2) we are familiar with some of the things happening and we have seen how it ends in real life; so maybe we kind of keep reading for that different ending. The book used time and history to make us care and make us think. Added to it, the fact that Ella and Kev have this telepathic link between them.

Marissa Merlino

4/23/2021 06:50:09 am

I forgot to compare Interior Chinatown with the book in my response, so I'm going to expand on what you said. In Interior Chinatown, there are many elements that contradict reality and could not happen in real life. At the same time, though, the book focuses on a very real issue that is a reality for Asian Americans, which is racism and the pressure to assimilate. This is also what we see in Riot Baby, as Ella has telekinetic abilities that are characteristic of a supernatural or fantasy novel, but the story is set in a hyper-realistic environment that graphically portrays police brutality and the prison pipeline. The "So what?" element is pretty obvious in both stories, but both books go about telling these stories in a unique way and use unconventional elements to educate the reader about very real problems.

Marissa Merlino

4/23/2021 06:02:29 am

On the surface level, someone could easily place "Riot Baby" in the genre of supernatural fiction because of Ella's abilities. I would not call this novel dystopian at all, as it legitimately reflects the reality of living in American as a black individual. The novel breaks down the evils of the prison industrial system and overpolicing in black communities. We see officers physically target Kev before he even attempts the robbery and his remarks towards them indicate that this is one of many occasions of unnecessary force and racial profiling that he has dealt with. During one of these ordeals, Kev reflects, "It's been like this ever since Ella left. Like she took the forcefield protecting me with her" (49). There is some tragic irony at play here, as Kev is looking to his sister as a safety net as the people who take an oath to "protect and serve" step on him. Throughout the novel, Kev and Ella are there for one another even in the most lonely, isolating moments. Ella appears as an apparition in Kev's cell, and both of them support each other when Mama dies.
Though Ella's powers are a means of protection for her, they endanger her at the same time. This situation is paradoxical, as Ella feels the need to harness her powers to keep Kev off of the polices' radar and protect black men like him from wrongful murder while at the same time, Kev feels that Ella's powers could result in danger for her and that he must protect her from herself.
The novel can be perceived as literary fiction because of what Ella's powers represent. More than just a supernatural element within a novel about racial injustice, Ella's abilities play a large role in enhancing the narrative that Onyebuchi is asserting. Ella using her powers represents the need for many young black Americans to form a method of self-protection/preservation in a society that is built to work against them. The sibling relationship between Ella and Kev could represent the black community as a whole, attempting to stick together and shield one another from harm while so many roadblocks within our government and our society prevent them from doing so. One of the most revealing set of sentences within the entire novel reads, "Ella wants to tell Kev to just survive. Just survive. But, in her chest, it becomes a cruel thing to ask him to do" (65). This indicates the lack of agency and choice that POC living in overpoliced communities are often faced with. Kev became wrapped up in crime which is increased by overpolicing, and is now a victim of the prison system. Ella's powers are often damaging to her and seem almost futile, since she is constantly witnessing the death of people in her community and, ironically, is "powerless" against them.

Brittany Ann Oppenheimer

4/27/2021 03:03:47 pm

I feel one genre convention I had noticed in this story is the idea that Ella can see into the future. For some reason, psychics are almost always portrayed as females for whatever reason. I have seen few exceptions, specifically in video games, but movie wise, it is in itself a trope. Women, especially in this book, come off as mystical due to there powers while the male characters are the ones getting locked up all the time, which, I feel can also be seen as a trope.
With that being said, the fact there are mystical powers in this book is enough to call it literary fiction. Fiction, to me, can be defined my a plot or thing that could never happen in real life or did not happen at all. Still, I can almost see this novel as a hybrid work due to the concepts of violence and police brutality that is present in the novel. Though, we can determine that the mystical powers aren't real, I can assume that the writer has had experience with this topic and might or might not have been in similar situations like these during her life. In a sense, yes, the themes of this story feel nonfiction, but how the world building was crafted makes it fiction in the end.

16 April 2021 Genre Fiction: Riot Baby

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