It also fails to acknowledge the vast differences between these characters that have nothing to do with their shared race or gender. Calling these protagonists “similar” because they share a few census categories does a disservice to the author’s gift for creating believably three-dimensional characters with unique challenges and back-stories. GOD EVANS HAVE YOU NO IMAGINATION? Here’s the thing. Lee is Dead” - a young black teenage girl in Virginia, on the cusp of graduating as her school’s Valedictorian. “Wherever You Go, There You Are” - a twentysomething black female PhD student in Delaware “Jellyfish” - a twentysomething black female sculptor who is also bisexual and lives in NYC “The King of a Vast Empire” - a twenty something black male bookstore employee in Northern Virginia “Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go” - a black male Iraq vet on Honorable Discharge “Harvest” - a middle-class black Columbia student

“Snakes” - a bi-racial tween visiting her wealthy white maternal grandmother in Florida while her anthropologist parents are doing field work in Brazil “Virgins” - a lower-middle class teenage girl from a single parent home in Mount Vernon, NY Without giving anything away, because I highly recommend the book (and to be fair, so did the AV Club), here is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the protagonists : I thought about this the whole time I read the collection. Evans does feature a handful of stories with different protagonists, including a young man recently returned from Iraq and in over his head with an old girlfriend, but she’s right back to her comfort zone in the next story.' Evans writes this protagonist-a young African-American or mixed-race woman who’s trapped between her past and a more promising future-extremely well, but when the first three stories all center on basic variations of the type, it leads to diminishing returns. I was excited to read this after coming across an AV Club Review calling it “a remarkable short-story collection in a good year for short-story collections.” But what made me especially eager to read it was something the reviewer said that didn’t sit right with me: 'The biggest issue with Suffocate is that nearly every story features a similar protagonist.

Before you suffocate your own fool self