Jocelyn Johnson’s novella, My Monticello, is a soul-nourishing story that begins on a spring night in the near-future after the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in 2017. White nationalists have returned to town. They are burning down houses and brutally attacking people of color. Da’ Naisha  Love, a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, flees to Monticello to escape the rampage. Barely breaking away from the violent mob, she drives off in an abandoned city bus. Fifteen other people are on that bus—Da’Naisha’s white boyfriend, Knox, her grandmother, MaViolet, a white couple who live on the edge of MaViolet’s neighborhood, and several Black neighbors including Devin, a man with whom Da’Naisha has a complicated history.

When the group arrives at Monticello seeking refuge, one of the three security guards challenges them. “Keep driving,” he says, but they don’t move. There is nowhere else to go. The University has shut its doors. Electricity and cell phones are down. Vigilantes rule the streets.

Mr. Byrd, another of the guards, recognizes D’Naisha from the summer before when she worked as an intern at Monticello. He allows them to stay. The group settles in, eventually moving into Thomas Jefferson’s house on the hill. They live on high alert, aware of the ever-present threat from the white militia members who are still on the loose.

Johnson’s writing is crisp, a pleasure to read. Her descriptions, especially of Monticello, the house, the grounds, the museum are so detailed and vivid that Monticello itself seems like a character in the novella. Johnson wrote My Monticello in the first person. We see the world through Da’Naisha’s eyes, heart, and mind. That choice made the prose both compelling and riveting. Every step of the way, I cared about what was happening.

The words, “We’re here” appear several times in the novella. The first time is a message written with white plastic bags staked high on a hill, a call for help. In the second instance, the words are used by Da’Naisha to deescalate a conflict. The third time, Da’Naisha uses the words to comfort the others.

For me, those words sent a message—not only is the group there, but they belong there. They have a right to be there. When Da’Naisha reaches through the broken glass of a display case, she touches the pearl-faced watch of her own great-great-great grandfather then feels “a low-level currency, some sense of conduction.” Later, Da’Naisha looks at Jefferson’s house: “handsome brick and double-storied windows framed by green shutters.” She imagines “black hands too, sunk in the mortar.” Then, Da’Naisha says, “My Monticello. The words formed low and unbidden in my throat, barely parting my lips to escape.”

Near the end of the story, once more, Da’Naisha touches on the concept of belonging. She talks about the white nationalists: “Their claims, along with their brutal means, trampled over the simple fact of my family…I felt it then, deep in my belly…that knotted tie to Monticello…My bond by blood and water—as master and slave. My ancestors had conceived of this house and bloodied their hands to build and maintain it”.

My Monticello is a beautiful and thought-provoking book.  Johnson doesn’t sugarcoat the truth and at the same time, her words radiate warmth, generosity, and grace that is hopeful at its core.