Perhaps the best evidence of Cole’s skill in this regard is the remarkable correspondence between a fictional event in the book and a real-life incident that occurred just miles away from where the book is set.

There’s simply no one better equipped to distill the racial politics of this moment into intriguing and terrifying entertainment.ĪLSO IN BOOKPAGE: Alyssa Cole shares why she’s wanted to write about gentrification for years. Through the story of one woman defending her home and her neighborhood, Cole dramatizes the economic displacement caused by racialized capitalism, as well as the petty skirmishes that take place between new settlers and old, between Black and white, on a daily basis in places like Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. She is drawing directly from today’s turbulent social currents and grim realities, crafting a nightmare from everyday terrors, both large and small. But Cole’s story is also highly original.

Alyssa Cole’s latest triumph incorporates elements of both psychological thriller and social horror. Its finale is a bit macabre, much like Get Out, and there is a romantic subplot as well, just as there was in Hitchcock’s masterpiece. Something is definitely wrong with this picture, and it’s worse than run-of-the-mill gentrification.īy now, many will have seen When No One Is Watching described as Rear Window meets Get Out. Longtime Black residents are disappearing from Gifford Place, and wealthy white people are moving in. A gregarious old man vanishes in the middle of the night, leaving his beloved dog and his belongings behind. A squeaky-clean honors student gets arrested for selling drugs.

When no one is watching alyssa