The Unfortunates by J K Chukwu

The Unfortunates is a darkly comic novel exploring the mental health of a Black student at a top American college. The narrator is Sahara, a Black woman with depression (her Life Partner, or LP) studying at a top University. She doesn’t want to disappoint her parents, who wish she would become a doctor instead of maybe majoring in English Literature, or her Ride Or Die best friend, or the woman she has a crush on, but her depression controls so much of her experiences, and soon things are spiralling out of control.

Written as if it was a university final project and incorporating visual art and surreal pieces interjected into the text, this is a distinctive novel with a memorable voice. Sahara uses acronyms to refer to everyone, apparently to anonymise the text as it is being submitted as a project, and there’s footnotes throughout, and all of these elements work together to make it really feel like a hybrid text created by someone trying to document their complex experiences not just with depression, but also with being a Black queer woman at a US college and not being how people expect her to be. The book is powerful and sad, but also witty, carefully balances to make what are very heavy topics (suicidal ideation features heavily in this book, which is worth being aware of before reading) have cutting commentary and even funny moments.

I wasn’t sure where the book would go and it almost felt inevitable, but I think that the narrative is carefully handled, making Sahara’s experiences seem realistic but also probing the depression-fuelled idea that there’s no support out there. Some of the real ridiculousnesses of university and especially in the way that elite institutions deal with tragedy and injustice are very pointedly depicted and The Unfortunates really shows that the dark side of academia many people experience isn’t some “dark academic” plot, but mundane inequalities, unfairness, and bigotry.

People need to go into this book knowing that it is a deep look at depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, because that won’t be something everyone can just pick up and read, but when you do read it, it is a powerful exploration of mental health and race at a US college with a creative style and structure. I felt like it refreshed the idea of what a campus novel could be, especially one posing as an assignment, and how you can intertwine personal experiences with structural problems.