Zakiya Dalila Harris Is Putting Corporate America on Blast
When Zakiya Dalila Harris left her job as an assistant editor at Penguin Random House to devote more time to her debut novel, she never envisioned that her book would become the highly sought-after object of a fourteen-bidder auction, culminating in a splashy seven figure deal and a Hulu series adaptation. “When I was writing the novel, I never thought this would happen,” Harris told Esquire. “I just wanted to finish a book.”
The Other Black Girl made waves not just for the enormity of the deal, but for its promise to put book publishing on notice. The novel trains an unflinching spotlight on the racism and microaggressions that remain a staple of this overwhelmingly white industry; it also lambasts the hollow-hearted diversity town halls put on by publishing corporations, asking how the publishing world might dig deeper to make truly meaningful change.
Fifteen months after the auction, The Other Black Girl is now the summer’s buzziest debut. Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this blistering literary thriller about Nella, a hardworking and ambitious editorial assistant who long has been the lone Black employee at Wagner Books. The arrival of Hazel, another Black editorial assistant, seems like the answer to Nella’s prayers—but Hazel isn’t the ally she seems to be. When Nella begins to receive threatening anonymous notes saying “LEAVE WAGNER NOW,” she immediately suspects Hazel. The truth is far more sinister, exposing Nella to a dangerous conspiracy that alters her worldview forever. Nella and Hazel's fraught relationship opens outward onto a long history of Black women pitted against each other by racist structures, peopling the novel with characters like storied Wagner editor Kendra Rae Philips and her star writer, Diana Gordon, whose friendship went south in much the same way as Nella and Hazel’s. In this powerful story of racism, privilege, and gatekeeping’s damage to the Black psyche, Harris puts not just publishing on blast, but corporate America writ large. Harris spoke with Esquire by Zoom to discuss misogynoir at work, her interest in “bad but good” science fiction, and how a fateful encounter in the office bathroom changed her life.
Esquire: Where did this book begin for you, and how did it take shape over time?
Zakiya Dalila Harris: I worked in publishing at Penguin Random House for close to three years. I loved the idea of being an editor for a long time. While I was there, I loved talking about books, writing, sentence structure, and all of those things. But at the same time, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I went into publishing right after getting my MFA in nonfiction writing. After I graduated, I’d been trying to get internships and work as an assistant for years. The publishing world is very hard to get into if you don't know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone. I'm pretty sure that's actually how I was able to get my job in publishing. I had an instructor who said to me, "Your writing is so sharp. I never have to edit you. Have you ever thought of being an editor?"
After two years at Penguin Random House, I was promoted from editorial assistant to assistant editor, which was huge for me. I was assigned to a book to work on myself, which is a huge responsibility. My boss trusted me, but I remember going back to my desk and crying to my coworker, "If I do this, my writing dreams are gone," because I had been really trying to do both. It’s so hard to do both. I know people who have done it, but it wasn’t working for me. I knew that if I stayed to keep editing this book, I would want to give this author all of my attention. I knew I couldn't do that if I kept trying to spend hours working on my own stuff. All of these feelings coincided during a moment I experienced in the office in January 2019. I was in the bathroom when I ran into another Black woman. I was like, "Who are you?" I could tell she wasn't an author. I noticed those things because I was the only Black woman working on my floor at the time, and the only Black woman in editorial. When I was working in publishing, I was constantly looking for other people who weren't white—specifically Black people. It was hard to find those people. This woman didn’t acknowledge me, for whatever reason. No judgment—it’s the bathroom. I'm actually glad she didn't acknowledge me, because I went back to my desk and started thinking. I was really excited to see her. Why was I so excited? Why didn’t she respond to me? Did she owe me a response? All of this percolated in my brain, and I started writing the book at my desk. I ended up quitting a couple months later, because I got so into it.
ESQ: What was that like, quitting your job just a few months into this new project and striking out on your own?
ZDH: It's not like me. When I quit, I was able to get a part-time job at a cupcake shop. I thought, "This will be really chill." It wasn’t chill—it was hard. Frosting cupcakes is really hard. It was chill in the sense that I didn't feel pressure to be constantly reading other people's writing. The human connections on the job fueled me in a way that working at a desk didn't fuel me. There’s also the fact that my partner happened to be moving in with me right around that time, so my rent split in half. Honestly, that’s part of what made it possible.
When I first moved to New York, I worked a toxic job with a controlling boss. This wasn’t in publishing; it was another industry. I rode the train into work every day feeling dread and unhappiness. Publishing was different; I loved my coworkers and my bosses were fantastic. But I felt a dread that I wasn't being true to myself. I didn’t want to get stuck in a rut. I could get stuck in a rut in a few years if I wanted to, but not right now—not when I had this idea. I was very fortunate and privileged to have a safety net if I needed one. My family encouraged me, and the timing fell into place.
ESQ: This novel is so deeply engaged in the daily realities of work. Not just the office power structure and the microaggressions Nella experiences, by the minute-by-minute decisions, like, “What should I write in this email? How am I going to meet this deadline?” What was your interest in so deeply embedding the novel in that moment-to-moment experience of work?
ZDH: Any office job involves doing similar tasks over and over. I've loved the repetition of those jobs. That’s part of what drew me to publishing. Once I got the hang of it, I loved knowing, "We just bought this new book. This means X, Y, and Z are going to happen." I loved the sameness of that. But when you don't love the job in your heart of hearts anymore, then the sameness starts to get grueling. I wanted to get at that with Nella’s experience. Before Hazel showed up, Nella was very much in thrall to the sameness of it, even though she felt less than appreciated by her office, but after Hazel showed up, those rote tasks became just another weight she had to experience. For any young person working in that kind of workspace, wanting something new is such a big part of the experience.
Going into the microaggressions, I really wanted this novel to look at the ways that all of those little microaggressions are just as horrifying as what happens in Get Out. Those microaggressions can be just as scary as a knife waving at you in the dark. I wanted to show that handling the microaggressions on top of your job is really hard, especially when you're not sure if you'll ever be able to ascend the corporate ladder. You never know if you'll ever achieve the dream, but you have to go through the motions anyway. There’s also this mentality of working in an office—"you're all in this together”—but the microaggressions cut against that.
ESQ: The Other Black Girl joins an emerging tradition of Black women writing about misogynoir in the modern office. I’m thinking of The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans, or Luster, by Raven Leilani. Do you see this novel as in conversation with that tradition?
ZDH: I absolutely think this book fits into that category. Each of the women in my book have difficult times at their jobs because they’re both Black and women. For Nella specifically, she constantly feels a ton of pressure to hide her feelings and smile twice as hard, because she has to avoid being seen as ungrateful, or as an “angry Black woman.” She also feels pressure to try twice as hard to be good at her job, because she has to set a “good” example for her coworkers at Warner, in the hopes that perhaps her success will eventually mean more Black hires down the line.
Plus, Nella has experienced so many damned if you do, damned if you don’t moments—to the point where she’s thinking, “Maybe there isn’t a place for me here?” When Hazel comes in and the same rules don’t seem to apply to her, Nella feels even more lost. The gaslighting is so frustrating and damaging, and I really wanted to show how insidious that feeling is.
ESQ: What are the books that influenced this novel—that you were conscious of being in conversation with as you wrote?
ZDH: One was Sula, by Toni Morrison, which concerns friendships between Black women. The other was Passing, by Nella Larsen. Larsen’s name ended up inspiring Nella’s name. I happened to be reading Passing right when I started writing this book. There are two women in that book, both very light-skinned, who are able to pass. They know each other's secret, of course. It’s such an interesting look at how two very good Black women feel these pressures from white society, and how they act with one another versus how they act with everyone else. It's a fascinating look at race. Passing influenced me hugely when I was thinking about Nella and Hazel—how there's envy, friendship, animosity, and class at play.
ESQ: The symbolism you build around hair in this novel is so striking. It's so beautifully executed in that the symbol builds into a plot device that’s ultimately the story’s lynchpin. What meaning does that symbol hold for you personally? Have hair and hair care been symbolic in your own life?
ZDH: Definitely. I experienced my own racial awakening right around the time I was finishing my MFA in 2016. Police killings had been happening for awhile, but that summer, there seemed to be so many more. When you're in New York, you see protests, you see people yelling at one another—you see everything. I remember seeing The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, an amazing documentary by Stanley Nelson. There was a moment where Kathleen Cleaver was talking about Black hair, and why the Panthers wore their hair natural. At the time I was not natural; I'd been relaxing my hair for years. I started relaxing my hair when I turned ten, which was the age at which my mom gave me permission. I grew up in a mostly white neighborhood in Connecticut, where all my friends and classmates were, for the most part, white. I was constantly seeing straight ponytails. I didn't have a symbol of natural hair in my life at the time; my mom and my older sister were relaxed, so it seemed the logical progression for me to relax my hair, too.
After seeing that documentary and getting really fed up about police killings, I decided to go natural. A few weeks after that, I had this moment where I was sitting in a park, and this photographer who shoots Black women with natural hair asked to take my picture. I remember being so excited. I was part of something bigger than me. I felt like I could be me, yet I had questions. Why was I killing my scalp all those years? Why was I doing this to myself? Hair has become such a big thing for me. I’m touching my hair a lot more than I used to. I'm twisting and braiding and putting it up in scarves. It’s such a big part of who I am and what my routines look like. It slipped seamlessly into this book. It’s also something that a lot of Black women can relate to.
ESQ: There’s a turn at the end of the novel where the mystery becomes more apparent. This could have been a very straightforward work of literary realism, so I was surprised when it took a surreal thriller turn. Where in the drafting process did this come into play? Was the novel always going to have that surprise edge of surrealism?
ZDH: It entered the picture really early on. I had all those thoughts I described earlier about being the only Black person at the office, but I also love surrealism, horror, and sci-fi. When I had the idea of two Black women working in this white workspace, I knew that something would be off with one of them. I didn't know how far I wanted to go. I toyed with the idea of making Hazel a robot, though that felt too easy, and Stepford Wives had already done that. I wanted to do something that felt familiar, but also completely new, if that makes sense.
I'm such a big fan of like those bad but good fifties sci-fi movies, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Blob. The Blob is a good example, because there's this normal neighborhood, where everything seems fine, whatever, but then a Blob comes out of nowhere. You accept that this is what's happening, and you fall deeper and deeper down the hole as these people try to handle it. Or take The Twilight Zone—I love how that show took seemingly average people and threw them into wild situations, or they took wild people and put them into normal situations. Nella was so used to the comfortable mundanity of her life, but then this other rotten thing began messing with her. I thought it would be more exciting to get at what’s at stake, at the consequences of trying to be yourself in this environment, by introducing an element that was otherworldly. People who would do something like what Hazel does are not of this world.
ESQ: You mention the process of developing the relationship between these two Black women in this white space. I love how you teased out the tension and the suspense in that relationship. At first, we see Nella feel an instant sense of kinship, but as the story goes on, every look and every word exchanged between them is scrutinized. What were you seeking to illuminate through that very chewy dynamic, where everything that happens between them has so much subtext?
ZDH: First and foremost, I have to go back to my own experience. I've definitely felt insecure about my Blackness. As a kid, I was mostly the only Black student in my classes. Once I got to middle school and high school, where there were Black people from other neighborhoods in my town, I realized very quickly that people thought I was different. "Who is this girl? Why does she dress like that? Why does she talk like a white girl?" I also remember this idea of trying that I noticed with certain classmates. I was so used to always trying and always participating. There was this feeling that maybe I shouldn’t try as much, which is crazy.
There are so many nuances in those interactions. I wanted to get into that. Why was it better to talk like a white girl to certain people? Nella has those same anxieties, so when Hazel seems to accept her for who she is, she feels excited and relieved and thankful, but then she also has expectations about who Hazel is. As Nella progressed in this job, she knew she had to be a certain way, so she assumed Hazel would be that way too. I wanted to dig into every single thing about Hazel that Nella thought would mesh with her, while also getting at Nella's anxieties about not being Black enough—not being from Harlem, like Hazel is. I also really didn't want to make Hazel a villain. I wanted Nella to feel happiness before things go sideways, because then you care about Hazel, and you start to wonder: “Is Nella creating this anxiety, or is Hazel actually making her feel this way?”
ESQ: As for ensuring that Hazel isn’t a villain, we don't approve of what she's doing, but you’ve masterfully engineered her character such that we understand where she's coming from. Part of how you get at that is layering multiple narrators into the novel. We see women on all sides of what's going on and can understand their perspective, even if we don't morally approve. How did you find and inhabit this large cast of narrative voices?
ZDH: I started with Nella, though I knew early on that Chani was a character. Kendra Rae and Diana had always been in the story as people that Nella wanted to take the baton from, but they didn't live on the page. In the third draft, I knew I had to include their voices. As I redrafted, I kept adding more and more voices, because I felt that this was a multi-generational story. It's not just about Nella. When I think about my experiences at work, I know that my dad had his own experience of working in a very white office in New York in the nineties. So did my mom. Their parents weren’t working in offices, but still had to work in certain settings that felt similar to what I’m experiencing now. It’s a bummer that so little has changed, but it's also comforting to know that I’m not alone in this. I'm not crazy. We still have work to do, but I take heart in how we’re talking about it and looking at ways to move forward. These voices from the past are so important to the novel. We care about what happens to Nella, but we care more because we know what happened to Kendra Rae.
To your earlier point about Hazel, I do want people to feel for her, because they know about the tension between Diana and Kendra Rae. All of those stories are so connected—they’re tied to the fact that these women have all tried to succeed in an industry that values only parts of them. Ultimately even Nella is not valued much more than Kendra Rae was valued. My hope is that Chani might make a different decision. I see her having agency at the end that the others didn’t.
ESQ: I remember reading a lot of breathless coverage in February 2020 when your book was sold. There was speculation that publishing would be put on blast by this book, or that people would feel indicted or exposed by it. How do you feel about how publishing writ large will receive this book?
ZDH: I was a lot more worried last year than I am this year. I'm not really sure why that is. One of my former bosses read it, enjoyed it, and definitely didn’t feel a way at all, which was wonderful to hear. A few of my former colleagues have read it and said, "This is so real." I do hope that this book isn’t singled out as just looking down on publishing, because I don't want it to be that. It’s definitely a critique of what we value in publishing, and of the class structure that still exists in publishing, but those hierarchies and inequities exist in so many industries. When I talked to people in TV and film, their stories of how this book resonated with them were so surprising and comforting.
I don't want the conversation to just be about publishing. I want it to really speak to being young and working at a place that doesn't pay very well, but you have to deal with it, while also figuring out what you want for your life. It's for those people. It's for Black women of all ages. I hope it's for also men to get a sense of what women experience: feeling like we have to always be a certain way, because I do think that's gendered. Within the publishing world, I hope that the book gets us asking more questions. Why is it the way that it is? Why did Nella do what she did? Does it say something about how we're evaluating applicants for our publishing houses? How can we figure out a way to retain people instead of driving them into other industries?
ESQ: I hope you're right about how it gets us talking. This makes me think about that part in the novel about the diversity town hall—how everyone's so excited to “talk.” I hope it gets us talking in a meaningful way.
ZDH: Talking is so important, but I feel especially after the year we've had, we don't have time to just talk anymore. Once people are back in the office, as soon as those doors open, the work has to start happening, because there's just no time. We've run out of options.
ESQ: You mentioned TV and film folks, which gets me thinking about the Hulu adaptation coming up. To what degree have you been involved in that process?
ZDH: I’ve been co-writing the adaptation. I'm actually in the middle of writing my first draft of the pilot script. I’ve never written a screenplay before in my life. I've been reading scripts and watching a lot of TV, which I was doing before anyway. When I was writing the novel, I never thought this would happen. I just wanted to finish a book. To have people really respond and feel that the character is bigger than the page is just a dream come true.
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