Heads of the Colored People

Running the three linked Fatima stories back to back makes the book feel, to more than one reader, like fragments or notes for a larger work rather than finished fiction, and several flip back a page to check they didn't miss a twist since “the stories all have very abrupt endings.” ‘A Conversation About Bread’ draws the sharpest verdict as the collection's weakest entry, closer to a sketch than a story. A reader outside the book's specific milieu, the educated Black professional middle class, describes the experience bluntly: they “felt a bit like a voyeur” watching a family argument when they are just a guest, and another admits “I often saw the intent behind the story too clearly,” the theme sitting on the surface instead of inside the fiction.