Review of Smoke Kings by Jahmal Mayfield

*Smoke Kings* by Jahmal Mayfield (2024). Published by Melville House.

For those of you who have never set foot virtually into this space, welcome! This is my blog, which serves as an online diary and digital archive of everything I’ve watched, read, and experienced in the past few years. Recently, it has become a source of income for me, and a crux as I faced unexpected unemployment after an opportunity I was told I had fell through. Feel free to click around if you liked this post.

In addition to this become a vital income source while I’m unemployed, I’ve been actually catching up on my content game. There are so many movies, television shows, and books I’ve watched and read throughout the years but never had the chance to review, so while I’ve had the free time, I’m dedicating more time to catching up on these reviews.

Today’s review comes from a hobby I’ve cultivated throughout the years. Whenever I go to my county’s public library, I try to look at the new fiction shelf immediately for titles I’ve never heard of. I try as hard as possible lately to branch out and read books from new authors I haven’t come across before, and this time I saw the title Smoke Kings and got curious.

It was the synopsis that drew me into this book. I’ve had a specific mission lately to read more indigenous and Black writers from the United States and support them through reviews on this blog. BIPOC/POC literature is my true passion, and I’m glad to have this space to write about these kinds of books and movies.

That said, I read this book fairly quickly. This review will come out much later due to the sheer amount of backlog I have to get through on the blog, but you’ll see it eventually.

Enough rambling—I feel like I’ve said enough in the introduction and will bore you with the semantics if I keep going. Onwards with the review!

After the death of his innocent little cousin, one Black man decides to get revenge for all of his ancestors who were wronged.

This is a book that’s seeped in history, but if you’re not Black and are looking for that history to be explained, don’t pick this one up just for that. Read it in tandem with other Black historians and voices—even if you know this history well, I still say go support those writers, authors, and thinkers in their endeavors so these stories keep getting told. It’s hard out there.

Anyways, our main protagonist in this novel is Nate Evers. He’s young and a political activist who wants to make change for the community he lives within, but it’s also hard out there in his world, especially as young Black men are still being killed on the streets. It gets even more personal when his cousin is murdered by a group of white men while out and about.

We learn more about the cousin’s story and the circumstances that led to his death throughout the novel. The chapters alternate between perspectives, as we also see the perspective of a white supremacist leader and a policeman who has to figure out what exactly is happening out here.

But back to Nate: he’s even more haunted after the death of his cousin, and he has a taste for revenge now. With three of his friends, they decide to hunt down the ancestors of those who were involved with the killing of Black people.

When they find out the names of these people, they kidnap them and confront these people with their very unfortunate histories. They then force them to pay reparations towards a community fund in order to try and make the world a somewhat better place, and Nate and his friends even set up a nonprofit.

Nate sees this as revenge, even though his friends view it as a form of justice. Things get very murky though when they confront someone they shouldn’t and it ends in a violent way, putting them in the path of a white supremacist group that are going to hunt them down, just like they did, and get justice for what they see as a wrong themselves.

Throughout the journey of this book, which flows smoothly like a river and keeps you on the edge of your toes, you can see how well fleshed out the four main characters are and how they interact with this perceived justice/revenge. In the end we can see how some cycles continue, while there are also consequences for their actions with everybody involved.

Overall Thoughts

I walked away from this book quite impressed with Mayfield. I had never heard of him before this, and I see now he is a debut author. I’ll be looking out for his work in the future—the writing in this novel is fresh and keeps you on your toes throughout the course of the novel.

That said, this is such a fascinating concept. I could see it happening in the real world because of the sheer amount of reparations that actually do need to be paid, and I could also see this becoming a television show. A lot of people might find themselves not wanting to watch it because of their prejudice, but this would be such a gem of a show.

I’m happy with the decision to pick this up. If you haven’t already read the book and want to, go pick it up. Go to your local library or independent bookstore to get your copy!

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