Rae Giana Rashad

In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States--a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences. Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman's occupation, spouse, and residence. Solenne finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who'd been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official. Solenne finds the psychological bond unbearable, so she considers alternatives. With Henriette as her guide, she must decide whether and how to leave behind all she knows. Inspired by the lives of enslaved concubines to U.S. politicians and planters, The Blueprint unfolds over dual timelines to explore bodily autonomy, hypocrisy, and power imbalances through the lens of the nation's most unprotected: a Black girl.

A Novel

The Blueprint

Lindsay

THE PATH WE WALKED TO BECOME Black women wasn’t straight; it was a loop. Starting from nowhere, it brought you back to nowhere. A man at one end, a man at the other, humming the same song, “It’s just a body. Nothing special.” If that were true, why did they want it? Why couldn’t it belong to me? Mama called it child’s want, something you grow out of. But the moment I recognized this loop existed, I poked holes at it to find an exit. There were times light shone through the pinpricks, but inevitably, reality was patchwork, sealing and stealing until there was only me and the dark. Like the beginning. End. Beginning . . .

I never wanted children. It was the quicksand that grabbed at us, filled our eyes with grit, and pulled us into nothing more than mama.

It was dangerous— this paradox Black girls couldn’t take the long way around to avoid. But Black girls are not parts created from perceptions. We are human in a world that told us we couldn’t be.

But then she understood some men were merely tools for others,

“I’m a sucker for pretty feet and long hair, but I’m not dumb.

“My mama said guilt guides assumptions.”

Pleading. This was the only system designed for us. We were girls, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. We were our ancestors, forbidden to read or write while lying under the arms of men who drafted legislation. We were educated in our mama’s kitchens, passing around secrets that gave us a fighting chance against men who held our world in their hands— men twice our age with enough status to outmaneuver us at every turn. We got him to free our mamas, sisters, brothers, the old men and women with twisted backs from forty years in the fields. We kept going in a system designed for our failure because our ancestors taught us how.

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