The Other Black Girl

The Only One in the Room

Nella Rogers has been the only Black employee at Wagner Books for two years. She has learned the cost of this: the emotional labour of being the representative, the explainer, the validator of every editorial decision involving Black characters; the code-switching and the careful management of how she presents herself; the way her assessments are taken differently than the same assessments from white colleagues.

She is also, genuinely, trying to build a career. She loves books. She wants to be an editor.

When Hazel, another young Black woman, joins the company, Nella’s first reaction is relief. Two is different from one. There is someone else who will understand the texture of what it’s like to be here, who will not require the constant translation. But things between Nella and Hazel are not uncomplicated, and when Nella starts receiving anonymous notes — “LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.” — she begins to understand that whatever is happening in this building is much larger than the usual workplace dynamics she has been managing.

Publishing as Satire Target

Zakiya Dalila Harris worked in publishing before writing this novel, and it shows in the sharpness and specificity of the satire. The white editors who congratulate themselves on diversity initiatives while implementing nothing meaningful; the manuscripts by Black authors that get published when they confirm white readers’ expectations and rejected when they challenge them; the cultural artefacts of a progressive-coded industry that has, historically, served primarily white readers, writers, and gatekeepers — all of this is rendered with the precision of inside knowledge.

The satire is funny, which is essential. The novel has a dark comic edge that saves it from becoming a treatise, and Harris’s portrait of literary New York — the parties, the lunch meetings, the gossip, the performative allyship — is the kind of satire that draws blood because it is recognisable.

The Thriller Mechanics

The thriller plot builds slowly. The anonymous notes escalate; Nella’s relationship with Hazel becomes increasingly ambiguous; the backstory of Wagner Books begins to reveal itself in fragments. Harris is patient with this buildup, using the workplace satire sections not as padding but as context that makes the eventual revelations land harder.

The supernatural element that explains much of the novel’s uncanny behaviour is introduced gradually and handled with sophistication — it is always possible to read the novel as psychological thriller rather than supernatural one, and the ambiguity is intentional. When the explanation becomes unavoidable, it reads as metaphor made literal, which is the best use of the supernatural in this genre.

Nella as Protagonist

Nella is deeply sympathetic without being idealised. She makes mistakes — including about Hazel, about what she’s owed and what she owes — and her judgment is compromised by the anxiety that is the constant background radiation of being the only Black person in a white space. The novel is very specific about this anxiety: the constant calculation, the second-guessing of whether a given slight was intentional or accidental, the exhaustion of maintaining composure under conditions designed to require composure.

This specificity is the novel’s most important achievement. Nella’s experience is legible to anyone who has been the only member of their demographic in a professional space, and it makes abstract conversations about workplace racism concrete and felt.

The Historical Dimension

The novel’s backstory involves a history of similar dynamics stretching back decades, which gives the thriller’s mechanics a historical grounding. The problem Nella is navigating is not new; the institution she works for has accommodated it and adapted to it and found ways to perpetuate it. This historical depth makes the thriller feel like a novel about something real rather than simply an entertaining genre exercise.

Our rating: 4.1/5 — Sharp, unsettling, and darkly funny. Harris’s insider knowledge of publishing gives the satire teeth, and the thriller mechanics deliver.