While my reading interests vary, I always like to have a collection of short stories near my easy chair. The short story allows me the opportunity to take a break from a lengthy historical work or a novel with a bogged-down plot that has become uninteresting. Occasionally it’s a scouting mission to determine if a writer’s books might be worth exploring. Sometimes a short story is all I have time to read.

"Thoughtful and stimulating, WITNESS marks Jamel Brinkley as an important young author with the power to move readers and transport them to places they may not visit otherwise."

WITNESS is Jamel Brinkley’s second collection of short stories. His first, A LUCKY MAN, won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the National Book Award, as well as several other prestigious literary prizes. Brinkley was raised in the Bronx and Brooklyn and currently teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His latest book consists of 10 stories set in the parts of New York City where he grew up. They feature Black men and women exploring what it means to be part of communities and families encountering hope and disappointment. Brinkley asks readers what it means to really see the world around you --- to bear witness --- and what it costs us, both to see and not to see.

These characters bear witness to issues of contemporary life. To witness is far more than to see; it is to feel and can even be a spiritual event. In the book’s final story, Bernice tells her brother Silas, “I can see your true nature now.” The two are living together in a tiny apartment in New York as Silas seeks a job, and Bernice struggles to combat an illness that confounds doctors. It is a particularly heartbreaking conclusion to this collection.

In a pre-publication interview, Brinkley talked about his writing strategy: “I mainly want to tell stories about the kinds of people I grew up with --- family, friends, neighbors --- and about people whose conflicted and complicated inner lives are interesting to me.” Most of his characters are Black with poor or working-class backgrounds. They represent the sad reality that people lacking race and class privilege in America must face significant challenges. His stories are written to accompany his characters as they are confronted with life and try to figure out what they are going to do.

One of the most moving stories in the collection is “Comfort,” which is told through the eyes of a young woman named Simone, who is the victim of a violent and traumatic act. Her brother has been murdered by police violence. She is saddened and worried as she tries to navigate through the long and endless days recalling her brother and the officer whose actions took his life. As Brinkley writes of Simone’s despair, he expresses her pain. In addition, he makes clear that this is something that happens all too often in our country. Brinkley has acknowledged in an interview that “Comfort” was a difficult story to write. It is also a difficult story to read.

How can people see what they need to see rather than what they want to see? Thoughtful and stimulating, WITNESS marks Jamel Brinkley as an important young author with the power to move readers and transport them to places they may not visit otherwise.