Sky Full of Elephants
A Novel
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4.6 • 47 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Bold and imaginative.” —Tananarive Due
“This stunning allegory will spark much discussion.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A truly powerful and riveting story.” —Booklist
In a world without white people, what does it mean to be Black?
One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charlie Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old left behind by her white mother and step-family.
Traumatized by the event, and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across a truly “post-racial” America in search for answers. But neither of them are prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.
Heading south toward what is now called the Kingdom of Alabama, everything Charlie and Sidney thought they knew about themselves, and the world, will be turned upside down. Brimming with heart and humor, Cebo Campbell’s astonishing debut novel is about the power of community and connection, about healing and self-actualization, and a reckoning with what it means to be Black in America, in both their world and ours.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Ponder race, identity, consciousness, shame, and pride as you read this contemporary fable set a year after all the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water to drown. Sidney, a biracial woman left alone in Wisconsin after the deaths of her white mother, stepfather, and half-brothers, reaches out to the Black father she’s never known, demanding his help to travel to Alabama, where her aunt now lives. Charlie, imprisoned for 20 years after Sidney’s mother falsely accused him of rape, must somehow connect with the daughter who’s been taught to hate the Black side of herself as they journey to the now-mysterious city of Mobile, ruled by a king and queen and containing a vast number of surprising revelations. This is a deep, painful, and ultimately exhilarating exploration of how generations of trauma shape people’s lives, how the effects might be overcome, and how unexpected sacrifices may need to be made to achieve equity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Campbell (Violet in Some Places) delivers a captivating near-future fantasy set one year after every white person in the United States walked in droves to the nearest body of water and drowned themselves. In the wake of "the event," people of color emancipated themselves from debt, jobs, prison, and other forms of bondage and reshaped the country. Charlie Brunton, who left prison (the details and merits of the case against him come out later) and has a new life with a nice house in a Washington, D.C., suburb, observes, "In the absence of white people, the American identity moved forward, but with a handicap, limping under the weight of old ways and a crippled sense of self." The plot gets underway when Charlie receives a call from his estranged 19-year-old daughter, Sidney, whose white mother drowned and who has been hiding in Wisconsin since the event. She convinces Charlie to accompany her to Alabama, where she believes some of her white relatives may be hiding out. Campbell's depiction of their trek across an altered and occasionally nightmarish Southern landscape evokes Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and he caps the narrative with fascinating revelations about the cause of the event. This stunning allegory will spark much discussion.
Customer Reviews
Wow
I wish there was more I could say, but all I have is… wow. This book reached me at a time when the world is blaming everything on Black, and this story reignited pride, curiosity, and fight within me. The words, the feelings, the care put into every single page of this book. Read. It.
Rarely
Rarely do you come across a book that puts you in a chokehold: this book had me at the title.
Great read will definitely read it again as I know I missed something
indescribably beautiful
the author poetically describes the journey of two main characters in a complex relationship, situation, and experience… both perspectives are powerful and significant with an even more complicated, yet beautiful conclusion that nearly brought me to tears