The World Doesn't Require You (2019) by Rion Amilcar Scott

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The World Doesn't Require You (2019)

by Rion Amilcar Scott

Cross River, Maryland  

Maryland: 6/9

  The World Doesn't Require You is the second collection of short-stories which all take place in a fictional Maryland town that was the site of the only succesful American slave revolt.  The best of these stories have either a satirical edge, metafictional fuckery or some kind of speculative fiction vibe.  For me the clearest comparison would be Paul Beatty in terms of tone.  Unlike many of the white Marylanders in the pages of the 1,001 Novels project, the black characters of The World Doesn't Require You are interesting.

   You don't need any back story about the fictional backstory of Cross River, Maryland, or at least, the reader isn't provided any back story.  Cross River appears mostly through its institutions- the local University plays a starring role in the longest story/novella, about two dissolute university professors (Special Talks in Loneliness Studies).  That story and another striking story about a regional variation of the popular children's game of "Ding Dong Ditch" both wallow in the academic setting of a "campus novel."  The other important institutions depicted are local churches, the focus of a story about a local musician who breaks into and then out of the local church music scene in an endless quest for the regionally distinct "sound" of Cross River.

    The World Doesn't Require You was a good selection to hear as an Audiobook.  Each story has a separate narrator, so that gave the producers an opportunity to employ a constellation of voices to tell each story