The Blueprint
A Novel
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“The Blueprint is an astounding work, an unflinching portrait of misogyny and racism in a speculative world terrifyingly close to our own. Rae Giana Rashad chronicles the generational ghosts of womanhood, and how we understand ourselves through the stories of those we come from, in a way I’ve never read before. A remarkable new talent, and a timeless literary voice.”—Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push
In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States—a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences.
Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman’s occupation, spouse, and residence. Solenne finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who’d been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official. Solenne finds the psychological bond unbearable, so she considers alternatives. With Henriette as her guide, she must decide whether and how to leave behind all she knows.
Inspired by the lives of enslaved concubines to U.S. politicians and planters, The Blueprint unfolds over dual timelines to explore bodily autonomy, hypocrisy, and power imbalances through the lens of the nation’s most unprotected: a Black girl.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rashad's consuming debut imagines a dystopian near future shaped by a second American civil war in 1954. In 2030, Black people, classified as Descendants of Slavery, are controlled by a new, white-led government known as the Order. DoS men serve as soldiers and DoS women are forced into work contracts for white men at the age of 15, then paired by an algorithm with a Black man when they are old enough to marry. Solenne Bonet has been contracted for five years to Bastien Martin, a high-ranking Order official who built the algorithm, and lives as his wife, having fallen in love with him and believing he would grant her freedom. Now coming to terms with the fact that love can't exist in such a relationship, she runs to Louisiana—the only state where DoS can be free. Throughout her journey, Solenne is guided by the echoing narrative of her 19th-century ancestor, Henriette, who contended with a slave owner's abusive obsession. The cat-and-mouse chase involving Bastien, a powerful man who will stop at nothing, and Solenne, a woman fiercely determined to gain her autonomy, thrills and disturbs. It's a provocative and worthy mash-up of historical and speculative fiction.
