Vintage Heads of the Colored People

This is a compilation of amazingly well written stories. Nafissa Thomson-Spires does not give you the answers, you need to read between the lines. Her stories are at times wrenching, hilarious, insightful and fun to read. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Okay, wow. This is a phenomenal collection about people struggling to forge a sense of identity in a modern world. The characters are all black, and so the topic of black identity (and black bodies) is front and center.The subjects are all contemporary, a mix of cutting satire and poignant realism: the two mothers exchanging passive aggressive notes via their daughters, a family of new age fruititarians filming a reality show, a high school girl who records ASMR videos, a narcissistic woman contemplating suicide for the Facebook likes, a funeral singer struggling to cope with the number of black bodies lost to gun violence.I’m always thrilled when I pick up a book blurbed by George Saunders. These stories certainly have echoes of Saunders’ and David Foster Wallace’s post-modern fiction, but they never, ever come across as derivative.Thompson-Spires plays around with form and structure in such a sharp way while never losing site of the subjects of each story.I loved this collection to the point of giddiness.

Enthralling and still reading but grateful for purchase

Just completed this book! Great collection of short stories that covers a variety of subjects such as racism not only black versus white, but black on black, which is evident in "Belles Lettres as well as class-ism is evident in this story, police brutality as well as homophobia is evident in the first short story of the book "Heads of the Colored People : Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology." Identity crisis is found in "Fatima, the Biloquist: A Transformation Story." My favorite short story out of the collection is "Belles Lettres," because these two well educated black women ensued in such a feud with each other via letters that at times was down right very offensive the way they attacked each other and their families. My least favorite short story was "The Subject of Consumption," because the main subject Lisbeth in my opinion was forcing her beliefs of living as fruitarians on her family who seemed not to have wanted this type of lifestyle.

“sometimes the enemy who looks like you is but a preparation for the enemy who is you. the violence directed inside mitigates the violence that comes from outside.”each story delves into the psyche. the mind and body at the forefront of some stories—the body a stand in at times for the psychological trauma endured by the characters in these stories; mostly by the black women and girls. the characters of fatima, marjorie, and alma clearly represented as they sometimes battled their bodies in order to deal with the outward violence that was being done to them— whether it was mental/emotional or physical, the trauma of these women manifested in their bodies, telling a story of what was happening inside their heads.there was also the question of blackness; of what it is in a white space, why it has to be that way, and what can be done with it—it circles back around into the conversation in a majority of the stories. thompson-spires frames the question of ‘what is blackness?’ in unusual ways, letting it be more nuanced, more subtle, in certain stories while loud and demanding in others. there is also the lingering question of agency of the body, of the black woman’s body and life, in quite a few stories. you see the struggles these women have in relation to their bodies, to what their lives should look like or be. it’s something that isn’t really solved in some stories as thompson-spires leaves that for readers to chew on.this collection is illuminating in certain aspects while causing even more questions in others. it’s left me with a lot to think about and that is always a marker of amazing fiction. if you want to read something that will stick with you and have you wondering about the characters even after finishing with the book, you need to pick this up.