A Peculiar Legacy
Rashid Darden
North Street Book Prize 2025 (view all the winners)
First Prize, Literary Fiction
Critique by Jendi Reiter
Rashid Darden's literary novel A Peculiar Legacy lovingly portrays a tight-knit Black neighborhood in Washington, DC where a newly arrived gay couple and a Quaker matriarch do their best to mentor the local teenagers after one of the youths is murdered.
First-round judge Annie Mydla said, "As I read, I felt I was forming an emotional connection with the community and characters. The dialogue in particular feels special, with a differentiation between character voices at a level rarely found in this contest."
The title alludes to a common epithet for Quakers, "a peculiar people," which in turn derives from an older, less pejorative meaning of "peculiar" as "special" or "chosen" in English translations of 1 Peter 2:9. I caught the Quaker reference because I'm a theology nerd; I would have liked a hint of it in the narrative so that general-interest readers wouldn't miss this dimension of meaning. As the story unfolds, we also learn that the teenager Peek's name is short for "Peculiar," and that he faces a choice about stepping up to inherit a leadership role from his murdered friend.
The story was loosely structured, more of a community portrait than a single narrative through-line, though all the subplots did converge at the end. This didn't bother me much because it's a short book, under 200 pages, and I was so absorbed in the world that Darden built.
The front cover has a strong, clear design with eye-catching contrasts of deep brown and white. It depicts four snapshots of serious-looking young adult Black men, indicating that this will be an ensemble story about friends in a community who take different life paths. The back cover has a tightly written and engaging book description with an inset illustration of the fortyish gay couple. I liked this little illustration because it captures the "opposites attract" quality of Jordan and Rahman's personal styles, one in a suit and the other in casual wear. They're facing the world together but you know there's the potential for rifts to develop, which promises some interesting drama for the reader.
It's hard to put my finger on what felt "self-published" about the interior design, but it might be the skinny margins. I would also advise against a glossy cover for a literary fiction paperback just because it's not in line with traditionally published design trends.
With diverse queer representation and distinctive character voices, this novel demonstrates the power of empathy and forgiveness. For more heart-grabbing fiction about at-risk Black youth and their mentors in DC, read Darden's urban fantasy novel Children of Fury, a Genre Fiction prizewinner in our 2020 contest. Some of those characters have background cameos in A Peculiar Legacy.
Read an excerpt from A Peculiar Legacy (PDF)
Buy this book on Amazon.
