Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Themes
Synopsis
In this “bold and imaginative” (Tananarive Due) “truly powerful and riveting story” (Booklist) set in a world where white people no longer exist, college professor Charlie Brunton receives a call from his estranged daughter Sidney, setting off a chain of events as they journey across a truly “post-racial” America in search of answers. 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 his 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, “this stunning allegory will spark much discussion” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) 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.
Sky Full of Elephants: content & age rating
Intended for adult readers (18+).
This adult speculative fiction novel contains a mass death event (all white people in America walk into water and die), explores racial identity and trauma, and includes moderate language and mature themes about wrongful imprisonment, estrangement, and societal collapse.
What to know going in
This book has moderate violence, mild sexual content, and moderate language. Content notes include suicide (mass event), mass death, and grief (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Adult readers will be gripped by this thought-provoking allegory about identity, healing, and what it means to be Black in a radically transformed America.